


Caught in the Crossfire

by Ridea



Series: Caught in the Crossfire [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Darkest Powers - Kelley Armstrong, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural, True Blood (TV), Veronica Mars (TV), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: An attempt at a realistic walking into a universe, Best Friends, Dean Winchester/Original Female Character - Freeform, Demonic Possession, Eventual Sam Winchester/OC, F/M, Gen, Loss of time, Mentions of Starvation, OC-centric, OCs for the win, OCs from our world, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Sort Of, all the trauma, apocalypse fail safe, characters with ptsd i should clarify, girls helping girls, learning how to fight and survive, rewrite of an old fanfic, takes place season 5, there was always a fail safe, these boys just need love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 53,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26940628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ridea/pseuds/Ridea
Summary: Takes place in season 5.When the apocalypse is triggered, an unexpected "in case of emergency" lever is pulled and two women are thrust into the Supernatural universe. Navigating the reality of a world they thought was just fantasy, the girls encounter a cast of characters while trying to survive an apocalypse without losing their sanity.
Relationships: Eventual Sam Winchester/Original Female Character, Side Pairing Dean Winchester/Original Female Character
Series: Caught in the Crossfire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036842
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. The Start

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of a fanfic I created with some friends back in 2009. This was before all the events of seasons 10 and on happened. I got into rewriting it for the third time during quarantine after I used it as an example to show my niece how writing skill changes over time and she asked for more. I spent the time also catching up on Supernatural (I stoppped back in season 7 or 8). Let me tell you HOW SURREAL it was to see things you wrote about in 2009/2010 in a fanfic appearing in canon. If you don't believe me, I still have the first 12 chapters of the original I wrote posted on my old livejournal dated 2010.  
> I hope you enjoy this. We had a lot of fun writing it again (we changed a lot from what it once was because, well, people grow). It will be a big crossover, as you can see from the fandoms involved. It's completed, I'm just in the process of editing it but all major changes are done. There will be a change of POV's between some chapters but I'll try to make sure it's clear.

_**“The big things and the little things don’t follow the same rules.  
**_ _ **We won’t be able to change the grand scheme of things… but the details.  
We change a grain of sand, and with that, the whole world.” (from the show Dark)  
**_

She was coming. That _thing_ was coming. 

I had gotten lucky. I got away because of a hunch from something that shouldn’t have even worked. I wasn’t even entirely sure I hadn’t just hallucinated it but...she killed everyone. Everyone who had ever been kind to me in this world was gone. I had walked into this place by chance and now I was going to die here, alone. I was just trying to get home. I just wanted to go _home._

I tried to push myself further into the corner. The barn was dark, cold, and falling apart. It looked like something out of a horror movie, but it was empty and safe...for now. The world was swaying. Spots floated across my vision. My stomach heaved but there was nothing in it. I stopped throwing up bile. I hadn’t eaten in days. Time passed strangely now. I didn't know how long it had been since I ran. I couldn’t stop shaking.

I thought I was finally getting a handle on things. That they’d be okay. I had been rebuilding my life, or starting to, with the strangers who had taken me in. I had walked into this world somehow, had been trying to figure out what happened and mourning the loss of my family...my life, but I thought maybe it was going to be alright. Until _her eyes_ changed. They had filled with black as she smiled at me and I panicked. This wasn’t supposed to be real. This wasn’t supposed to be possible. 

Everything hurt. I had run out of water. I had run out of everything. I couldn’t bring myself to move, to keep pushing forward. I couldn’t feel my fingers...or my toes. There was no help left, even the hope I was chasing based on an insane theory. I wasn’t going to make it. I was going to die in this abandoned barn and no one would ever find me. No one was going to know. 

Something moved into my vision. I tried to focus, and as the shape of a human came into view, I recoiled. It reached out to me but I couldn’t move, couldn’t escape through the wall behind me. Fingers touched my forehead and suddenly everything was clearer. It was like I could finally think again. I could feel my fingers again. The person kneeling in front of me was recognizable. It wasn’t her. 

“Misha?” I was dreaming. Or dead. He was an odd apparition for death. His head tilted as he stared at me and I realized I was wrong. “Castiel.” 

“You know me.” His hand moved forward again and I reached for the bag I had stolen. The world suddenly changed. I was standing. I bent forward, trying not to throw up again.

“Woah, are you okay?” 

Hands touched me. I shoved them off and looked up. The barn was gone. I was in a cold, metal room. I knew this room. I had seen it before, but not like this. It had been on television. It was far less welcoming now. I looked to see who had been touching me. I closed my eyes tightly. This wasn’t real. I was hallucinating or I had died and hell was personalized. 

“Holy...Michelle? Michelle! Mish! Oh my god.” 

“You’re,” my voice cracked. “You’re not real.” 

“You sure? I feel pretty real for once. Come on, open your eyes, and look at me.” 

I did. The woman in front of me looked like a replica of my best friend. She had the same blue eyes, the same button nose. It wasn’t possible. “You’re dead.” My throat tightened and I tried to swallow, to keep myself from crying at the sight. 

“I was,” she nodded. She looked unusually serious. “I was dead and now, well, I guess I’m not.” She smiled at me, her grin lightening her face. She lunged forward and before I could scramble back, she hugged me tightly. It felt the same. I pulled back and looked at her. Her pale blond hair was hanging loose around her face. She looked the same as she did before she died. 

“How?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was alive, then next thing you know, dead, which really fucking sucks. All for the love of deep-fried Oreos.” She looked at me. “I went looking for you. Next thing you know, human again so...” 

I shook my head. It wasn’t possible. It was too much. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. I couldn’t breathe. 

“Is she well?” A different voice asked. 

“Yeah, just...Michelle, breathe. Come on, not that hard, you’ve been doing it forever. Take a deep breath.” 

“I can’t-” 

“You can. I know, this is weird, but you gotta breathe so we can figure this out.” 

My breathing shuddered as I inhaled. I felt a hand on my back and tried to focus on that, on the fact that Kelly was somehow alive and next to me. I started crying. Large, hiccuping sobs as I curled forward, trying to block it all out.

“This is fucking weird,” I thought I heard Kelly mutter. She didn’t stop touching me until I finally stopped crying. I wiped my eyes and as I quieted, she continued talking. “Hey, it’s okay. I mean, totally weird, but at least we’re here together. I mean, we’re not alone anymore, right? That’s a huge plus, being alone sucks, and if we are where we seem to be, hey! Least there’s going to be some _great_ scenery!”

I couldn’t help but laugh slightly. The latter was something Kelly would say but it couldn’t have been possible. I looked up at her. We were in the panic room. If it worked how it was supposed to, she had to be real. Had to be human. 

“Come on,” she stood up. “You gotta at least meet Jane. She’s in here too.” 

My head snapped up and I looked around. Standing off to the side with her back to a wall but facing the door, was a tall, muscular red-headed woman. Her curls looked wild. She looked wild. She was wearing baggy, mismatched clothes. The skin that was shown was covered in blue-green tattoos that seemed to swirl the longer you stared at her. 

Kelly helped me stand and when I swayed slightly at the sudden vertigo, she held on, looking concerned. The other woman stepped forward. I clutched the back of Kelly’s shirt tightly. The woman glanced down and seemed to notice. She stopped walking. 

I kept my eyes on the strange woman as I continued to talk to Kelly. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Back home. How did you get here?”

“How did you?” 

Images of the road to Gainesboro, the diner, and the concern of Edgar and his wife flashed before me. I felt myself shaking as I tried to force it to stop. “I-I walked. I was,” I swallowed dryly. “I was handing out resumes. Left a store and was just...not there anymore. Wasn’t anywhere.” 

“That’s what happened?” She looked confused as I glanced over at her. 

“What...what did you think happened?” 

She shrugged. We were both still holding onto each other. “No idea. I was a ghost, I only found out you went missing when I stopped by your sister’s when I couldn’t find you at home. No one...no one knew what happened. You just disappeared. Police investigated and when they stopped your family hired private detectives.” 

I frowned, trying to remember the days. How much time had passed? “It...it’s only been a couple of months?” 

Kelly looked up at me. “You were gone for over a year.” She looked confused and sad. “Michelle, I spent months looking for you, figured I’d get more progress as a ghost since I could walk through walls and all. Had to help somehow, not like there was anything else to do. That’s how I got here. Looking for you. I didn’t expect this. I mean...I don’t even know how to wrap my head around it. I didn’t think this was a real place. It’s not supposed to be.”

My legs collapsed under me. I heard Kelly swear as I nearly brought her down with me. A year? How could it have been a year? My vision swayed and I couldn’t breathe. I had to go back. I had been trying to go back and a year passed without me. 

An arm suddenly wrapped around me, under my armpits, and lifted. I was forced into standing. The redheaded woman was holding me up. She looked down at me.

“Breathe,” she said. “You have been given this trial by your gods. Stand and face it as the woman you are.” I was not expecting the deep timbre of her voice, nor the lilting accent that went with it. She was surprisingly strong. 

“Who are you?” I asked. The strangeness of her had drawn me out of the shock. There was no fear, no hesitance in her eyes. She said something that I didn’t recognize, in some sort of musical language I had never heard before. 

“They have called me Jane in this world.” 

“Yeah, for Jane Doe,” Kelly moved in front of me. “Are you okay?” I didn’t know how to answer that. “Did...he find you? The angel? That is super weird to say, but it was Castiel, right? He was the one who found us? Wait, why were you found after me? You were here first, right?” I thought about the diner. The smell of blood and burnt flesh and the promise made by a demon to find me. “-chelle? Michelle?” I snapped back, looking at Kelly who was staring at me in concern. 

“Did he find you right away?” 

Kelly shrugged. “Pretty much. Ended up arriving at this murder scene in a diner. Totally freaked a few people out, gotta say. I figured out people could actually see me and took off. Castiel found me after that. He only stuck around long enough to drop us off here.”

“I have been in this world for two lunar cycles,” Jane inputted. She released me slowly as if to make sure I would remain standing. “I knew this world was not my own. The Goddess is silent. She does not speak to this land. There is no life here...in the nature.” 

I glanced at Kelly and she nodded. “You get used to her.” There was no uncertainty that Jane was not from our home. Not with how she spoke. 

“Sure.” I felt the room start to sway again. “I need to sit down.” Kelly grabbed my arm and guided me to the cot in the room. 

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked again. “I was saved from answering. Jane moved quickly, standing in front of the door while she motioned us behind her. I didn’t move. There was the sound of metal on metal and the hairs on my arms rose. A voice called out. 

“Hi, uh,” I recognized it. Kelly hit me in the arm multiple times, grinning widely. “My name is Sam. Sorry about all of this, but, uh, we’re going to let you out and go upstairs to talk. Figure this out.” The door opened slowly.

Kelly looked at me and whispered, “oh my god!” 

We all stared at the man who opened the door. He was larger than I expected, at least from the distance. He seemed to take up the whole doorway. The sight of him was just more proof that we were somewhere we shouldn’t be. 

“To what purpose have you kept us here for such time?” Jane asked, shifting her stance slightly. 

“Yeah,” Kelly called out. “Did it take that long for Castiel to convince you we were human? I’ve been in here for hours!” 

“Sorry,” he seemed taken back by the response. “We were busy. We had to make sure.” I nodded. I couldn’t blame them for wanting to be careful. 

“Couldn’t you have saved yourself the trouble and just seen if we could leave the panic room?” Kelly asked, looking at Sam like he was an idiot. 

“What? How-how do you…” Sam looked stunned before he frowned. “We need to talk.” He motioned for us to leave. Jane waited until I was standing, Kelly hovering close to my side, before she exited. I grabbed the small backpack that I had brought. Kelly motioned for me to leave first, and as I walked out the door, I paused, looking up at Sam. 

“My god, you are tall.” My eyes widened. I did not intend to say it out loud. 

“I am tall,” he replied, looking confused but slightly amused. I moved quickly to where Jane was, trying to ignore the embarrassment of the exchange. I turned back to look for Kelly. 

She had paused in the doorway. She was reaching out, but looked like she was being stopped by something. Her face fell and she started to look panicked. 

“No. No no no no…” My heart stopped. She suddenly grinned at Sam, seeming to ignore the fact he was reaching for something and jumped through the doorway. “I’m just kidding. My ghost days are behind me.” She walked over to me and I hit her in the shoulder with my hand. “Ow!”

“Don’t do that!” I snapped. Kelly made a face at me and I glanced over at Sam who was watching us carefully. He motioned us forwards. 

I looked around the basement as I followed the others. It seemed mundane. I looked back at the panic room. It was safe there. If I could just…Sam stepped up behind me, blocking my view of it. I turned quickly and tried not to fall at the sudden motion. He was intimidating in the flesh.  
  


* * *

  
He directed us to the library. The doors were open and two more familiar men were waiting. It still didn’t feel real. I was not a hundred percent certain that it was. It seemed too easy, or good. My dead best friend back to life? The Winchesters? It seemed far more likely that I was dying in that barn and hallucinating something to help me deal with it. I just wasn’t sure why I went for this. 

“Holy fuck,” Kelly muttered. “He can’t be fucking real.” She was staring at Dean. I nudged her with my arm and she blinked. She grinned widely at me, nudged me back and shrugged. “What?” 

“Right,” Dean broke the tension. “Let’s get to it. Who the hell are you and why’d Cas put you in the basement?” His voice was deeper than I expected. He looked the same as the actor did. All of them did. It was eerie to look at. It didn’t help make it feel real. 

“I’m Kelly, this is Michelle and that…” Kelly motioned to Jane, eyes narrowing as she tried to figure out what to say. Jane seemed to take pity on her and said something in the same language she used before. Kelly nodded slowly like she understood. “This is Jane.” 

“Uh-huh, want to tell us why Cas says you’re from another world?” Dean asked. 

“Because we are,” Kelly replied. 

“Yeah, I’m not believing that without proof, sweetheart,” Dean said. He folded his arms across his chest. “There’s no such thing as other worlds.”

“You sure about that?” I asked softly. I still felt Kelly next to me and it steadied me enough. “Alternate universes are a thing that scientists have been trying to prove for years.” Everything was building and I felt like it was going to explode. Everyone was staring but I couldn’t stop. After all that I had gone through, I still needed to prove myself. I dropped the bag I was still holding on the floor. “If there’s no such thing as other worlds, tell me how it’s possible that I went from dropping off a resume, to walking on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. How did I go from Canada to the middle of the States in the blink of an eye? In a place I don’t exist.” I moved forwards, anger fueling me. “I searched for myself. There’s no record of me in this world. There’s nothing on my family. If other worlds don’t exist, where’s my family?” My voice cracked and I swallowed the lump in my throat. I didn’t want to cry. I felt a hand on my back. 

Kelly stood next to me as I stared down Dean Winchester. I couldn’t stop myself from lashing out. “You don’t _exist_ in my world. You’re a fictional character in a stupid tv show that we watched, and you know what? That means we know everything. _Everything_.”

“Like the deals,” Kelly said. 

“The demons,” I added. 

“The angels.” 

“The visions.”

“And the time in hell,”

“Drinking demon blood.” 

“And letting Lucifer out of the cage,” Kelly said before scoffing. “We know everyone wants a ride in your meatsuits. Tell me, Dean, thought about saying yes yet?” 

He recoiled as if she slapped him. 

I moved back, suddenly deflated and regretted it. The room tilted and I felt myself sway, vision darkening. Exhaustion and hunger had caught up with me again.

“Woah!” Dean grabbed my elbow and Kelly tried to steady me, arm going around my waist. “You okay?” 

“I...I need to sit down.” I blinked, trying to get the world back in focus. Jane appeared at my side. She took Dean’s hand off of me and led me to the couch. I sat down and bent over, putting my head between my knees. I just needed the nausea to pass. My body was shaking. My stomach rolled and I tried to stop myself from heaving. There was nothing to throw up anyway. I tried to focus on my breathing. 

Jane knelt in front of me. “When was the last you ate?” 

I groaned. The thought of eating made my stomach roll. I waited until it settled, breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth. “I don’t know,” I said. “Yesterday? The day before?” The snacks that I had stolen didn’t last long. 

“Jesus,” someone muttered. My head hurt and it almost felt like my skull was going to crack in two. 

A slice of pizza was suddenly shoved in my face. I shoved it back. “I can’t.” I looked up to see Dean scowling at me. 

“This ain’t the ritz, you get what you get.” 

I shook my head. The movement and the smell made me want to throw up again. “I can’t eat it.” He didn’t move.

“Come on, Mish,” Kelly said. “Not the worst thing you could eat. Hell, you practically lived off of it before.” She cracked a smile. I was going to have to explain. Fuck.

“I can’t.” I looked at the ground, trying to avoid the expressions on their faces. “I’ve barely eaten in the last two weeks, outside of scraps I could find or things I could steal...which wasn’t a lot. Last thing was that kid’s backpack.” 

“What?”

“What the fuck? Why?” 

“I know you’re thin, but I figured that was from stress,” Kelly’s voice said. “How the fuck were you starving?”

I ran a hand through my hair, before I covered my mouth. Tears built up suddenly and I felt myself start to cry again. Kelly was suddenly kneeling in front of me, looking concerned and scared. 

“Mish, what happened?”

“I...” the lump in my throat grew and I swallowed, trying to gain some control over myself. “I was so lost,” my voice cracked. “I didn’t know what was happening, or where I was. Edgar,” I took a deep breath. I looked at Kelly. “Edgar helped. He and his wife took me in, let me use their phones and computer to try to get home. When it didn’t...when I couldn’t find anything, they took me in. They owned a diner and let me work there until I figured something out.” I clenched my hands tightly. “They helped and now they’re dead.” My jagged fingernails dug into my palms. “Three months. Three months of trying to figure out what was happening. And then…” I looked up at the brothers, at Bobby. Someone who would understand. 

“A demon came into the diner. I didn’t know. I served her and she grabbed my arm. Something was different, something was off about me. She said she could tell I didn’t belong.” They suddenly looked concerned. “She killed them all. Everyone. She wanted to tear me apart to find out what was wrong, what she sensed. They died. They died and it was all my fault!” I gave into the tears. Sobs wracked my body, releasing more of the tension and fear that I had been carrying since I ended up on that road. 

“Holy shit,” I heard Kelly. “That must have been where I showed up. It was a murder scene. They were still cleaning it. Cops were all over that place.”

“Hey,” a large hand touched my shoulder. I wiped my eyes to look at Sam. He had moved Kelly to the side and was kneeling in front of me. “It wasn’t your fault. She probably would have killed everyone regardless of whether or not you were there. That’s what demons do.” He looked far more concerned and upset than I expected him to. 

I nodded, unable to speak, as I wiped tears from my face. This was embarrassing. I hated crying and already had done it twice. It felt like weakness, like I was giving the world weapons to be used against me. 

“That must have been that diner Rudy was checking out, Gainsboro. Said there was sulphur all over the place,” Dean said quietly. I looked up at him and when he saw me watching, he cleared his throat. “How’d you get away?”

I huffed. “The only way I could.” I glanced at Kelly. “I tripped, fell into a counter and a cart as she was coming towards me. It was pure luck. Her eyes went black and I...I was desperate to try anything. It had salt. She was blinded, just long enough for me to run. She said she’d find me. Cops were already outside. I just...I never stopped running.” I shrugged, trying to play it off. “I avoided everyone. I didn’t know...I couldn’t be sure who was safe or not, so I stayed off the roads. I stole from dumpsters, people if I could, and just walked. I think the last sign I passed was Nebraska.”

“That’s...that’s like a fifteen-hour drive. At least.” Dean said, his eyes wide. Both of the brothers glanced at each other. 

“Yeah, I don’t know how...I think it was about two weeks? Maybe more, I don’t know. I barely slept, barely ate, just-just kept going.” I looked up at them. “What could I do? She said she was coming and I didn’t...I didn’t know where to go. I thought of this place, of Bobby. I was going to try to get here. I-I didn’t make it.”

"What do you mean?”

I tried not to shift under their gazes. “I was in a barn when Castiel showed up. I-I couldn’t go on anymore. It was...I was so cold. And tired. I couldn’t move. I thought...I thought I was dying. That I was going to die,” I gave a small laugh, ignoring the look on Kelly’s face. I tried not to curl up into myself. I felt like I was under a spotlight being scrutinized. 

“Right, well, you all seem pretty friendly with each other. You all come from the same place or what?” Dean asked around a mouth full of pizza. 

“We do not,” Jane answered, looking disgusted at the sight. “They knew of each other at first glance. I have no knowledge of them before I was sent here.”

“Oh god,” I heard Dean mutter. “It’s another Cas.”

“She’s right,” Kelly said. “Michelle and I were friends for years before I died, but I’ve never seen this girl before in my life.” She pointed to Jane. “Or afterlife,” she added with a tilt of her head. 

“Wait wait wait,” Dean held up his hand. “Afterlife?” He looked at her incredulously. He rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache. 

“Yeah,” Kelly nodded. She stared off into the distance, eyes unfocused until she shook her head. She looked at Dean. “I died like...two years ago? Wandered around as a ghost, not as fun as you’d think. I tried to haunt some people, communicate you know? When I found...when Michelle went missing, I searched for her. Ended up here alive and...alive.”

“I need a drink,” Dean pushed away from the desk before turning. Bobby already had glasses poured out. Dean handed one to Sam who finally stood up awkwardly from his place at my feet. He was even more intimidating when he stood while I was seated. The height difference was insane. 

“What I don’t get,” Bobby finally spoke, “is how you girls know what you claim to know.” He had been watching us quietly, letting the boys take the lead. With the Winchesters questioning and trying to help you, it was easy to forget he was there.

“Like we said, it’s a tv show,” Kelly said. “You know how there’s books written here about you guys?” The men either rolled their eyes or winced at the reminder. “Same idea, only a tv show back home. Same plotline, but it doesn’t end with you going to hell.” 

The boys looked at each other. “Where does it end?” Dean asked. “What was the last thing you saw?” 

“On TV? You got sent to the future by Zach,” she said softly. “Where the Croatoan virus was everywhere. You met your future self.” 

I frowned. I didn’t remember that. 

“What about you?” Dean asked, looking over at me. 

“Um,” I tried to think. It was hard to focus on it, to think back. “Lillith died. Ruby too. You let Lucifer out.” 

“That makes sense,” Kelly said. “You were gone before season five started.” She paused for a moment. “Us being here doesn’t make sense. That’s not in any of the notes or plans for the season…” 

“How do you know?” I asked. 

She shrugged. “I got bored. They had whiteboards all over the offices with plans for the show. Things to come, things they were scrapping. Just ideas really. Alternate universes weren’t a part of it.” 

“I take it we’re running off-script then,” Sam said. 

“Just a bit,” Kelly grinned before her smile faded. “So, do you have any reason why we’re here? Or how it happened?” 

“This had trickster stink...Gabriel written all over it,” Dean said. 

“Gabriel?” Kelly asked, looking confused. “Who’s-”

“It’s a tear,” Castiel said, suddenly appearing next to Dean. I jolted back, nearly falling off the couch. 

Kelly jumped and held a hand to her chest. “Don’t do that!” 

“What do you mean a tear?” Sam asked.

Castiel seemed to sigh. He looked around the room. “You started the apocalypse. It created...rips into other dimensions, other worlds. They came through them,” Castiel motioned to us. “It leaves a trace. There may be others. I’m looking into it.”

The trace. That was what it sensed. That was why I was here. My hands started shaking as adrenaline coursed through me in a demand for flight. I tried to stay still. 

“Can they go back?” Sam asked. “If they walked in through a rip, couldn’t they just walk back through?”

“If one could find it, theoretically, yes. If the rips haven’t sealed. We don’t know how many have opened or how many are coming through. I have heard...nothing from heaven.”

“It might be impossible,” I spoke up, ignoring how my voice shook. I cleared my throat and clutched my hands together in an effort to still them. “I mean, it’s obviously moving. I ended up on a dirt road about five miles from Gainesboro. Kelly arrived by the diner. If it is still there, it won't be in the same place. Besides, I can’t go back.” 

“Why not?” Kelly asked. 

“Come on,” I scoffed. “Strange girl walks into town, then disappears after everyone is killed? It’s suspicious.” Dean looked like he agreed.

“So what are we going to do?” Kelly asked.

“I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know! I just-I can’t...I can’t go back, I can’t let it get me. She said she was coming, she’s going to get me and I can’t-I can’t go back.” I looked around. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t...I bent over, trying to calm down, to take slow breaths but it made me panic more. No air was coming in. I needed to get out of here. I needed...I needed air. I couldn’t breathe. Tears built up in my eyes. I felt someone stride towards me and I looked up, desperate for help. Castiel reached out. Cool fingers touched my forehead and everything went black.

  
**[tbc]**


	2. Kelly's POV: Porch Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Michelle remains in a "Cas coma", Kelly adjusts to her new surroundings...and life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still not 100% certain how I'm going to show this. I have a variety of chapters from Kelly's POV, but not enough to do one after each of Michelle's chapters. Let me know if you want me to add them into this doc, or if you prefer a second story just for Kelly.  
> Thank you all for your support and I hope you like this. We do. :P

**Porch Talks (Kelly's POV)  
**

_There is no death only a change of worlds. - Chief Seattle_

It was just after sunset and I was sitting on the back deck of Bobby’s with a glass of whiskey in my hands, the rest of the half-full bottle beside me. I felt awkward asking Bobby to drink his booze but was pleasantly surprised when he told me to take the whole bottle. I guess he could see in my face that one glass wouldn’t do the trick.

As the last of the daylight slipped away, my mind wandered. Part of me knew I should be more freaked out but I was oddly calm about my circumstances. I had spent most of the day being grilled by the boys and Bobby about my arrival here and the world I’d come from. It was a welcomed distraction from worrying about Michelle’s health, both physical and mental. I started to pour more into my glass when I heard the door open and close behind me, followed by footsteps that stopped beside me. From the corner of my eye, a well-worn work boot appeared. I followed it up a leg clad in beaten denim, to find Dean standing over me.

“Mind if I join?” He waved an empty glass above my head before sitting down on the steps beside me. I passed him the bottle and he silently poured himself a generous glass. He took a long drink, watching me over the rim. “Did you know the silent staring is seriously unsettling?”

I snapped out of my apparent stare, “sorry, I didn’t realize I was even doing it. I guess I’ve been doing it a lot, eh?”

Dean laughed, “eh. Sorry. Hah. Guess you weren’t lying about being Canadian.” 

I smiled back, “Nope. Sorry about the staring.”

Dean laughed again, and I realized I’d dropped another sorry. I was being pretty damn Canadian. 

“I keep forgetting people can actually see me. Before, I could stare at someone and zone out completely. No one could see me, so I seem to be missing the normal social cues of when to stop now.” 

“You’ll figure it back out. Besides, we have Cas around, so we’re used to weird social ticks.” Dean grabbed the bottle and topped up my glass. We lapsed back into silence for a few minutes before he broke it again. “So, can I ask? What was it like being a ghost in your world that long?”

It was my turn to take a long drink. I wanted to repress the last years. “Lonely.”

“Lonely?” Dean raised his brow, giving me a look to continue.

“Yeah and frustrating. I never encountered any other ghosts like me. Years of having no one to talk to. To help me understand why I was still around. Lonely. Helpless. I could see things happening, but couldn’t do anything to help anyone. Watching family and friends mourn you? It’s heartbreaking. I tried everything to show them I was still there, but couldn’t.” 

I downed more of my drink and Dean wordlessly refilled it. I felt the warmth of the whiskey spread in my chest, and the compulsion to keep talking.

“Being here. Being human. I’m happy, but I feel so fucking guilty to be happy while I see Michelle struggle. Happy.” I snorted and shook my head. “How fucked up is that?”

“Not fucked up. You’re human. You’re not alone. Sounds like a good reason to be happy to me.” Dean gave me a half-hearted smile.

“I was at that diner. I saw the aftermath of the demon that attacked Michelle. I didn’t know she was there at the time. She’s struggling, and dealing with that trauma, and I’m over here. Happy.” I raised my glass in a mock cheer before taking another long drink.

“We’re going to help her, and you. Make this right. You have my word.” I looked at him making eye contact. He looked so sincere, I felt a new calmness wash over me.

“I don’t even know what helping me looks like. I don’t want to go back to my world, not to be a ghost again.”

“Then Sammy and I will help you make a life here, once this is all...sorted.” He knocked my knee with his and smiled. A life here was a lot to consider. I would be human again. If Michelle could go home though, I’d still be alone, in a world where monsters were real, but at least I would be alive. 

“Thank you. Can we keep this between us, for now? I need to be strong for Michelle, and whenever that day comes, if that opportunity comes, I don’t want her to know what my choice would be.”

“Absolutely.”

I wanted to change gears. Thinking too far in the future was bound to get my hopes up. Knowing this world, demons, angels and monsters, I could be dead again before I had a chance at another future. I drank more and Dean did the same. We lapsed into silence again, staring out at the scrap yard ahead of us.

“Do you know how long she’ll be out with what Castiel did?” 

“Cas said a couple of days. She’s in rough shape. He said he fixed the physical injuries, but the mental stuff...well even angels have their limits.” 

I hadn’t seen Michelle in over a year in my world. The woman I saw here was not the same by a long stretch. Gaunt and haunted, I was still surprised I had recognized her in the panic room. My mind flipped back to the scene at the diner again. All that blood. The smell of burnt flesh…

“You’re staring again” 

I snapped out of my train of thought and realized I’d been staring directly at Dean. He didn’t seem bothered by it, probably used to it from Cas. “Thanks. Sorry again”.

This earned me another half-smile, “stop being so Canadian.”

I laughed a genuine laugh and felt a little of the weight lift off my chest. Dean grabbed the bottle to pour more for both of us, and we both realized it was nearly empty. Seeing the bottle so empty I recognized a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a long time. “Uh oh.”   
“I’m sure Bobby has more.” Dean stood up to head back into the house, but I stopped him by grabbing his pant leg.

“No, not that. I haven’t had a drink in years, and now I had a few glasses of straight whiskey. On a mostly empty stomach. I think I’m drunk.”

Dean laughed “okay, lightweight.” He offered a hand and pulled me up. I swayed slightly as my world refocused, and he steadied me with a hand on my waist. My mind focused on the touch. Another thing I missed as a ghost was human touch. It felt so good. I must have been staring at his hand as he moved it and mumbled an apology.

“I think I should go to bed. After I chug some water.” 

“Probably a good idea.” Dean motioned for me to lead the way back into the house. 

I grabbed a glass of water and said goodnight to everyone. I stumbled up the stairs and headed up to the bedroom to pass out.

* * *

It was the second day at Bobby’s and I was sitting on the porch again. I had spent part of the day reading, but soon realized I couldn’t help much with research, given a lot of it was in Latin. Jane was staying in the basement to keep watch over Michelle and I was restless. I didn’t know what else to do but sit outside. Feeling the sun on my face, and enjoying being human again felt like the only thing I could do. 

“We have to stop meeting like this.” Dean sat down on the step beside me, two beers in hand. He cracked one open and passed it to me before opening his own.

“Trying to get me drunk again?” I smiled as I took a swig of the ice-cold beer. 

“Seems like you might have needed it, but figured you wouldn’t want to look at whiskey right now.”

He wasn’t wrong. I’d woken up that morning with a pounding headache and a rolling stomach. “I did not miss hangovers as a ghost.”

“Little hair of the dog, and you’ll be fine.” I was silent but could feel Dean watching me, assessing. “Cas says Michelle seems better. She could wake up soon.” 

“That’s good. Any luck with the research?”

“Nothing solid yet. Cas is back out looking for more, like you guys.”

“Bobby will love that. More of us crammed in his space.” 

“We’re working on that too.” Dean turned to lean against the porch post facing me. “So, you said we’re a TV show where you’re from, huh?”

I appreciated the change in topic and smiled, “yeah, very loyal...but small following.” 

Dean nodded his head smiling, “loyal you say?”

“Yup, some fans even have the tattoo.” I nodded my head at his chest.

“Do you?” Dean’s eyes scanned what skin I had visible and I felt myself blush. Blushing was another thing I did not miss when I was a ghost.    
  
“No! But now that I’m here...well seems like we should probably work on that sooner than later.”

“We can figure that out when Michelle is awake. For now, Bobby probably has some spare charms around if you’re worried.” Dean looked out over the scrap yard, “so you’ve seen it all?”

“Well, what a 40-minute show would show. Enough for us to know you two have literally been to hell and back and all that in between. Enough to know that what we’re facing is terrifying and we should be scared shitless.”

“I never got why people read the books, and I really don’t get why people would want to watch us. This.” Dean motioned at himself and the house.

I smirked, “well, a lot of fans don’t watch for the plot.” 

He looked over at me alarmed but then amused. “And you?” 

“I was always a horror fan, but I definitely watched for more than the plot.” I smiled while internally freaking out that I just admitted to Dean my attraction to both him and his brother. I quickly added, “besides, the family dynamics. The brotherly bond. That’s what really kept me, and Michelle, hooked.”

“Did you have siblings?” Dean was still staring at me, a slight smile on his lips.

“A brother. Not close like you and Sam.” I paused, allowing myself a moment to think about my family, “I was supposed to be an aunt, but died before that happened. I was  _ there  _ for the birth, but not.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Can’t change the past. I’m thankful I could still experience some of it. Before it got too hard. I eventually took off and decided to do some sightseeing. The show films in Canada.”

“Canada? Seriously? Sam and I have barely gone to Canada. Little hard crossing borders.”

“Yeah. Well, the show is shot in Vancouver, but based in the US, like you really are. I’d never been far beyond my home alive, always too expensive to fly on my budget. As a ghost though? No restrictions. I saw a lot I wouldn’t have seen alive. Quickly realized it wasn’t the same though. You can’t touch things. Experiences are muted. You don’t feel the ocean breeze on your face, you can’t breathe in the crisp air of the mountains.” 

Dean gave me an indescribable look, something playing behind his eyes. “So you’re human now. We settle all this, you can go anywhere. Where do you go?”

It was an innocent question. Probably also Dean trying to figure out where he and Sam could dump me if we all survived this. It was also a question about a future I was actively trying not to think of, or more accurately, hope for. My face fell and I suddenly fought back tears. I could see Dean watching me closely. I swallowed and took a deep breath to attempt to steady myself. I knew my voice would be shaky when I spoke. I decided to do what I always did when things got serious. Joke. “Maybe Disneyworld. I could work at the haunted mansion. I’ve got the resume for being a ghost.” 

Dean laughed, his laugh lines pronounced, probably relieved he didn’t have to deal with a girl breaking down into tears. “I haven’t been to Disney ever. Sam and I always joke about it, but never made it happen.”

“Well, saving the world tends to be more pressing than riding teacups.” I could still hear the tremble in my voice but was getting it under control.

Dean opened his mouth, about to ask another question when Jane appeared at the screen door, “she is awake”.   
  


**[tbc]**


	3. Balance and Solidarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to Michelle's POV. Michelle wakes up to face the car of her dreams and an interrogation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think of this. I'm thinking of having Kelly's POVs in a separate thing because there aren't enough to really fit in between every chapter. I think it may disrupt the flow.  
> Anyways, as always, enjoy and please review!

_You get nothin' for nothin'_  
_Tell me who can you trust_

_\- If You Want Blood (You Got It) by AC/DC_

I woke up slowly. It felt like I had slept for weeks. My head felt groggy. My eyes felt like they were sealed shut. I rubbed them hard to get them open. I was lying on the cot in the panic room. It was still real. It wasn’t a dream. 

I sat up slowly. Despite not feeling anywhere near awake, I felt okay. I didn’t feel like everything hurt, or that I was suffering from starvation. It was odd. I stood up and I didn’t feel like I was going to fall. 

I looked around the room. The cold iron was comfortable to have around me, but I headed to the door. I needed to figure out what was happening. I needed to find Kelly.

The door was open. The basement was ominous when it was empty. I headed up the stairs. When I got to the top, I paused. Kelly was coming in the back door with Dean following her. 

“Kels?” 

She grinned at me. “Mish!” She walked up to me. I hugged her tightly. I felt her stiffen before she hugged me back. “This is weird,” she muttered. 

“I wasn’t sure you were real,” I said. “I thought I was dreaming.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” she whispered. “We’re okay. We gotta whole lot of weird to deal with, but we’re okay.” 

I let go and pulled back. “What happened?” 

“You’ve been asleep for two days. Castiel knocked you out.” She looked back at Dean.

“He healed you,” Dean said. “Least, physically.” I nodded. That explained how I felt okay, at least, to a point. 

“Hey, not to like...push things,” Kelly said, looking over at Dean. “But we kind of need a huge favour. I smell. Jane smells. Mish...definitely smells.” I went to protest then stopped myself. She wasn’t wrong. “We need to go shopping for essentials. I don’t know about them, but I didn’t need to change as a ghost. Pretty sure that Jane stole the clothes she’s wearing.” Kelly looked at me.

“I didn’t have time to grab anything. I left with what I had,” I tried not to think about the diner and how I only had time to run. 

“We’ll...also need to use your credit cards.” 

“Right,” Dean said. He looked both of us over before he nodded. “I’ll grab Sam. Find Jane and meet us at the car.” 

My eyes widened and I looked at Kelly. “ _The_ car?” 

“Oh god,” Kelly muttered. She looked at Dean. “Now you’ve done it.” She turned back to me. “Best friend comes back from the dead, you’re merely happy. Get to ride in the Impala? Exuberant. I see where I stand.” I hit her, smacking her shoulder with my hand. It felt instantly like she had never left. My throat tightened, remembering what it was like when she died. 

“Five minutes!” I jumped at Dean’s voice as he moved past us. 

“Mish, you’re starting to scare them.” 

I jolted out of my staring. “Sorry,” I muttered. The car was beautiful. It was pretty much exactly what it looked like in the show. I stepped forward. Both the men were watching. “I’m sorry,” I said louder. “It’s just...it’s a beautiful car.” 

Dean grinned and nodded. “Damn right she is. Get in.” 

Sam opened the back passenger door. Jane entered first, looking around the car slowly. I went next and Kelly came in after me. I looked around. The leather bench seats felt real and there were some wrappers on the floor. I couldn’t stop my excitement. It still felt surreal but for a second, it was almost like I could forget everything that brought me here. I leaned over the front seat as the boys got in. 

“Dean! Can you play AC/DC and blast it?” I asked. I heard Sam groan but Dean gave a small laugh and popped in a tape. The sound of TNT came on and I started to sing along. 

“I thought you were terrible at staying awake in cars?” Kelly half yelled. She had never been a fan of loud music. 

“I am!” I yelled back. She sighed, closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. The music would help keep me awake. 

Jane leaned over from next to me. “I do not understand your affection for this noise.” 

“It’s not noise,” I said. “It’s music. Good music.” 

“Hell yeah!” Dean said up at the front, banging his hands against the steering wheel to the beat. The music continued without further protest. After a few songs, the car finally slowed to a stop. We were in front of a Walmart. 

“We’re here.” Sam turned to face us. “Go in, get what you need and we’ll call you. Here.” He started to hand a cellphone to Jane before he realized who it was and gave it to me. “Take my cell. We’ll be back in a bit to pay for everything.” 

Kelly opened her eyes and sat up. “You aren’t coming in?” I paused. I hadn’t considered that. I looked out the window. There were people in there. People who didn’t know about the truth of this world, people who could be things that weren’t human. 

“You need us to hold your hands?” Dean looked over the seat. “Unless you’re planning on running off, you don’t need us standing ‘round while you shop. We’re going for food. We’ll be back in half an hour. If anyone else but me calls, you don’t answer.” He pointed at me. I nodded automatically. “Now go!” 

Kelly turned and opened the door. I didn’t move. There was so much that could go wrong. Jane pushed on my back. I went out slowly. 

The boys drove off and I stared at the store, instantly regretting coming. I should have just told them to buy me things and to guess at the size. There were too many people here.

“Hey,” I looked over at Kelly. “It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t tell her that the thought of going in there, being surrounded by people who could be anything, was making my heart pound and my palms sweat. “Let’s get this over with quickly.” 

I stared at the mirror. It was odd looking at myself. My brown hair fell limp against my head. My cheeks were a little sunken. I used to think my eyes were my best feature. Now they just looked haunted. 

Nothing fit. Not like it was supposed to. I had never been thin back home, but the stress of this world had played havoc on me. I used to wear a large in shirts because of my stomach and chest. Now it felt too big. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the size of my feet. 

“Michelle?” I jumped slightly at Kelly’s voice. I hadn’t wanted either of them out of sight, but that didn’t work when it came to trying on clothes. “You done?”

“Yeah,” I opened the change room door. “I need new sizes though.”

“In what?”

“Everything.”

“Really?” she looked me up and down. “Well, I guess you are thinner. Come on,” she said. “I need you to help me convince Jane to wear a bra.” 

“What?”

“She says, and I quote, the contraptions are confusing and a binding is easier.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“At the knives. She tried stuff on and once it fit, she left it in my basket. She’s still wearing the bindings but I took the bras in her size and added it to the stuff.” Kelly motioned to a cart she had next to her. “Come on, let’s grab the sizes you need and find her before the boys call. She’s demanding we grab work out clothes or clothes you can move freely in.”

“What? Why?”

“Hell if I know!” Kelly raised her hands in the air and then dropped them. She looked frustrated, which was understandable. “Come on, we also need essentials. Like toothbrushes and deodorant. Don’t tell the guys but I’ve been using whoever’s deodorant is in the bathroom. I smell like a dude.”

“It’s probably Bobby’s…” 

“Eh…” she shrugged. “Then he’s even less likely to know or complain. Come on, maybe we can freak the guys out and buy a ton of tampons. After all we are three girls and it's bound to happen eventually.”

By the time the boys had called and found us, we were ready to go.

“You sure you got everything?” Dean asked, looking at the full cart. “You don’t need more? Like the kitchen sink?”

“What’d you expect with three women who literally only have the clothes on their backs?” Kelly said.

“You guys didn’t even get coats,” he said, peering into the cart. 

“We got coats. And layers.” She pulled out one of the thin coats we had grabbed. It was more of a fall type of coat. 

“It’s freaking freezing outside and you’re telling me you just got that?” 

Kelly and I both looked at each other.

“It’s not that cold?” I phrased it like a question even if I didn’t mean it that way. 

“It’s twenty degrees!” Dean looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

I frowned. “What? It’s not hot out.”

“He means Fahrenheit,” Kelly said leaning towards me. “It’s like...maybe minus ten?”

“Dean,” Sam said. The cashiers were watching us now. “They’re Canadian, remember?” 

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “This isn’t cold. I mean, it’s cold, but it’s not fuck my face cold.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Now that’s cold.” Both the boys stared at us in shock. 

“Don’t worry, if we need to, I’m sure we can come back, right?” she grinned at him, “this is a relationship I could get used to.”

Dean turned away, grumbling under his breath as the cashier rang everything up. I would have felt bad if I hadn’t known they were using a credit card with a fake name. There was no plan to actually pay for any of this. 

The cashier was flirting with Dean while giving us dismissive once overs. Everyone in the store had given us looks, though not as much as they would have in any other place. We were not the oddest thing in Walmart. Another woman came up to the cashier, smiling and looking over at Sam. I leaned over to Kelly.

“I think the environment’s getting a little hostile,” I tried to tease. It didn’t quite feel right but I was just trying to relieve some of the tension I felt. 

Kelly rolled her eyes. “No kidding.” She made a face as one of the women laughed and I tried not to smile at it. Instead, I turned to Sam and handed him back the phone that I was still holding.

“Here.”

“Thanks,” he took it and quickly pocketed it. “You get used to it,” he said.

“Hmm?” I looked up at him, not entirely sure what he meant.

He motioned at Dean and the cashiers. “Them. It takes longer but he’s flirting and they haven’t noticed that they haven’t actually scanned everything they’re passing through.”

“Oh!” I had never even thought of that. Dean flirting with you would be a distraction. I turned to look and sure enough, the girl flirting back didn’t notice when one of the shirts she slid over the scanner didn’t scan. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It usually works, though occasionally not well with certain old ladies.”

I snorted, then covered my mouth with my hand trying to hide my giggles. I could see Kelly looking at me confused but I could perfectly imagine Dean trying and failing to flirt with an old lady. It felt like forever since I had laughed. I stopped, realizing the truth in that. I definitely hadn’t laughed since I left the diner but before that…before that was rare too. Even before leaving my world, I didn’t laugh much after Kelly died. 

The shower was heaven. I didn’t realize how filthy I was until I kept washing. I eventually had to force myself to stop. Scrubbing my skin raw wasn’t going to erase the memories that were burned into me. 

I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, the demon was waiting for me. The memories of the blood and the bodies were there. I looked around the dark room that Bobby had offered up to us. Kelly had dragged me upstairs to force me to shower and catch up. She had passed out while I had showered. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t sleep. She was sprawled across the bed and facing away from me. I stared at her for a moment, watching her breathe. It was still real. She was still here. 

I climbed over her carefully. Jane wasn’t in the room but there were sounds coming from the main floor. I went to the washroom to clean up before I headed down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. It wasn’t that I wanted to hide my presence, but I hadn’t had much interaction with the men outside of the first meeting and shopping. I was far too aware that people generally said more than they intended to when they didn’t realize you could hear them. 

It wasn’t anything more than “pass me that book”. I moved closer. I caught sight of the clock. It was just after two in the morning. It didn’t feel like we had been upstairs that long. I didn’t want to intrude on the men. I just...I couldn’t be in the dark anymore. Even if it was slightly better feeling someone sleeping next to me, it just brought me back to nights alone. I couldn’t stay in that room, but I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I wanted Kelly to wake up so I wasn’t alone. 

“You gonna stand there all day or come in?” I looked up, startled at Bobby’s voice. I had made it to the doorway without realizing it. 

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, quickly stepping into the room. “I just…” I trailed off, unsure of what to say. 

“Keep moving,” Dean appeared behind me, beer in hand. He ushered me further into the room before walking around me. “We have some questions for you.”

“Questions?”

Dean sat down in a chair and looked up at me. All of them were sitting and looking at me. It was a little surreal and really unnerving. Anxiety started to creep up my spine. 

Sam stood up. “Why don’t you sit down?” He moved a stack of books off of a chair before pushing the chair towards me.

“Thanks,” I said. I stayed standing. It felt like I was being ganged up on already and my body was gearing up, as if ready to run. “What questions?”

Dean leaned forward. “How old are you?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” I asked, confused at the topic. 

“Fact-checking,” he said.

I frowned. That didn’t make any sense. “Fact…” I looked at all of them, watching their expressions when it clicked. “Like a lie detector. You already know the answers, but you want to see if I’ll give the same ones.” I scoffed and shook my head.

“Answer the question.”

Anger welled up in me and I suddenly pictured taking up the book near him and hitting him with it, over and over, just to make him stop looking at me like that. Like I was something he needed to hunt. I shoved the intrusive thought out of my head and took a deep breath. I could work with this.

“Only if you answer mine,” I said. I waited as the brothers looked at each other before Dean nodded. “I’m twenty-seven. Where in the timeline are we?” They looked confused so I elaborated. “How long ago did you release Lucifer out of the cage?”

Sam shifted in his seat before answering quietly. “About four months ago.”

I nodded. The timeline was confusing. It didn’t match up with the show if Kelly was already into the next season. I remembered what Kelly said about how long I was gone. Time worked differently. 

“How did you get into…this world?” Sam asked. I frowned at him. I told this story. This had to be more fact-checking. A good way to see if people were telling the truth was to ask them the same question at different times, see if they had the same answer.

“I walked,” I said. “I was job hunting, walking around and handing out resumes. Not a lot of work for someone who dropped out of a university master’s program. Least, nowhere I wanted to work. I walked out of a store and suddenly I was just on a dirt road. There was no sign of anything. I didn’t even realize the scenery was different until after I took that step. I looked back and there was just…more road.” I stared at the bookshelf, thinking back into the moment. I had panicked. I had screamed. I was just so confused.

“You didn’t feel anything?”

I jolted out of my thoughts, looking around the room as I remembered where I was. Sam was leaning forwards, his arms on his knees and a concerned look on his face.

I shook my head. “No. It was just one second in the city and the next somewhere I had never even seen before.” My throat tightened. The fear from that moment had never quite left. I tried to change the subject. “What happened after I...after Castiel knocked me out? Is there a plan?”

“You’re staying here,” Bobby said. “For now.” There was a slight threat lingering there but I didn’t pay any mind to it. That was understandable. I opened my mouth to thank him but he stopped me. “Don’t thank me just yet. We still don’t know why you’re here…or how to get you home.”

Home. I swallowed tightly and clenched my jaw. I took a deep breath. Gods, all I wanted was to go home. To tell my family I was alive and that I was okay. Sort of. I tried not to think about the fact that it might not be possible. 

“What happened after that?”

I looked sharply at Dean. “I already told you that.”

“So tell it again,” he said.

“Dean…” Sam called out. Both of us ignored him.

“No,” I said. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him. “When you said you wanted to ask questions, I figured it was something about what I knew about you. Not the Spanish inquisition. I didn’t agree to be put on trial.”

“That’s not what’s happening here,” Sam said.

“Isn’t it?” I snapped, looking at him. “You waited until I was alone, most likely still sleep-deprived despite being put into a _coma_ by an _angel,_ and traumatized considering what you know I’ve been through so far so that you could force whatever truth you want out of me? Way to go. Points to you for trying to take advantage of what I’ve dealt with so far.” I gave a hard smile before turning to walk away. I had enough.

“Michelle,” Jane stood in the entranceway to the room. Her red curls were wild, looking as if she had been running through trees and had caught pieces of them in it. I had no idea how long she had been there or how much she heard. “You’re awake. I wish to speak with you.” I tried not to sigh. So did everyone it seemed.

“Wait your turn darling,” Dean said from behind me. “We’re not done.”

“The hell we aren’t,” I snapped.

Jane walked towards me and looked at the men. “I care not for your trivial words, man-child. I wish to speak with her and so I shall. Presently.” Jane took my wrist and pulled me out of the room. She let go once we were in the hallway but motioned for me to follow her. She led me out of the house. The air was crisp and I could almost see my breath. I went as far as the porch. 

She stopped once she realized I was not following further. She sat down on the ground at the bottom of the stairs and motioned for me to join her. I sat on the top stair and waited. I didn’t know her. I had no idea what she wanted, but I was nervous. Again, I wished Kelly was with me.

“What did you want to speak about?” I finally asked.

“You were uncomfortable,” she leaned back on her hands. “No man should make a woman uncomfortable. If we were in my world, he would pay for the disservice.”

I stared at her for a moment. Woman solidarity transcended worlds. I had to admit, that was kind of cool. “Thanks.” She nodded in return and it was silent for a moment before I spoke again. “Why outside?”

Jane seemed to sigh. “This world is stifling. All these…machines and steel. You take no pride in what the Goddess gifts you and your world is lacking.” She looked up to the sky. “The stars will not even shine here.” I watched her for a moment. There was a look on her face that almost seemed sad and resigned. She looked back at me. “Despite this, I am more free outside, more connected to the earth than when I am within those walls.”

“Will you tell me about your world?” I asked.

She smiled and it seemed to lighten her entire face. She suddenly looked so much younger than I expected. “It is very different from this one. We do not have these barriers between ourselves and the earth, nor do we have the same machines. All are welcomed and cherished by the Goddess. Women are the leaders of our clans; we hunt and provide for our young ones and the ones who cannot care for themselves any longer….”

The sun rose as we spoke. Everything in Jane’s world sounded rather primitive compared to what I was used to…but also nice. You could hear how much she cared for her community, and it was a community. They took care of each other in their clans. A cooperative living environment. Something that would rarely happen in our society, and if it did, would be looked down upon by others. It sounded like I would have been much safer had I landed in her world instead of this one.

It also explained a lot about Jane. She was a leader in her clan, in line to become the head. A skilled hunter and fighter, often in the front lines of any skirmishes they had with other clans or animals. It made me wonder.

“What do you think of this? Of…being here?”

She didn’t hesitate before answering. “It is a trial from my Goddess and I will prove myself worthy of her.” She looked determined, and I was tempted to dig further, to know why she thought this was a test and if she thought we’d ever return. I just wanted someone to know and she seemed so confident that I would believe her. Or pretend I did.

My stomach growled suddenly and Jane looked at me sharply. She stood up quickly.

“You need sustenance. Go, find yourself food. If they deny you it, inform me. I do not trust these men and I shall deal with them if I must.”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” I said as I stood up. “Despite everything, they are good men. They’re just…stressed. Like all of us.” I gave her a small smile. “Thank you.” She nodded at me and I turned and walked inside.

I passed Sam in the hallway who was on the phone, heading towards the back door. I walked into the kitchen and stiffened. I forgot it was connected to the library. Dean was leaning into the fridge. He looked up when he heard me and straightened. I pressed my lips together as we both tried to figure out how to proceed. I took a deep breath and tried to let go of any residual anger that I felt from earlier. It wouldn’t do any good.

“Got anything light to eat?” I asked tentatively. An awkward peace offering if any.

“Uh, not really,” he looked back in the fridge. He looked up at me, confused. “Can’t you eat normal? Cas healed you.” 

I hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know. I...I haven’t eaten in days. Better safe than sorry,” I shrugged. The thought of eating felt strange after days of trying to scavenge. 

He seemed to think about it, his head tilted as he nodded. “Soup?” 

I sighed before nodding. “Sure. I’ll try it.”

“Cans are on the shelf next to the sink. Pots under it.” He motioned. He finally closed the fridge and poured himself a cup of coffee. It didn’t look fresh. 

I opened the cupboards, looking at the cans of soup. Suddenly, the thought of making food exhausted me. I closed the cupboard and opened one after another until I found cups. I grabbed some water from the sink and leaned against the counter. I drank one cup and then another. I held back on drinking more. I knew better than to drink too quickly, I just wanted the hunger to subside.

“Not eating?” Dean was staring at me, taking a sip of his drink.

I shook my head before looking at him. “I’m tired. Can’t be bothered to make anything.”

Dean made a noise as if he agreed. “Sam’s grabbing food.”

I nodded, though it wasn’t likely it’d be anything I could eat, or wanted to. “I’ll make soup later.”

He didn’t say anything but didn’t leave either. It was awkward and I felt like I should say more. I could see Bobby in the library. Sam, I assumed, was gone. I had no idea if Jane was where I left her. I pushed away from the counter, put the glass in the sink and walked away.

**[tbc]**


	4. The Start of Surviving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations about home and Jane takes action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you for giving this a chance. It's been a lot of fun to write. It is a fairly slow burn but I hope you still enjoy it. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks!

_ "You will survive and you will find purpose in the chaos.  _

_ Moving on doesn't mean letting go." — Mary VanHaute _

Kelly was still asleep in the exact position I left her. I froze and suddenly panicked. What if her being alive was a temporary thing? I ran to the bed, shaking her. “Kelly! Kelly!”

She groaned, turned over and swatted at me. She made some sort of noise that didn’t even sound human. I exhaled sharply, relief flooding through me. I knelt on the floor next to bed.

Kelly groaned again, turning onto her stomach, clutching the pillow before using it to cover her head. “What?” She peered out at me from under the pillow. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said. I stared at her for a moment before sitting on the ground. I turned to lean back against the bed. “Just making sure…” I trailed off, unable to explain. The pillow suddenly hit me in the head. “Hey!”

“I’m not dead again.” She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. “Waking up sucks. What time is it?” She moved her legs off the side of the bed.

“I don’t know. Haven’t exactly looked at a clock. Still early, I think. Sun’s up.”

“Right.” Kelly yawned, stretching her arms in the air. “I’m not used to sleeping. It’s great but also weird. Why am I still tired?” She sat there for a moment in silence. “Right, let’s find a toothbrush and go downstairs. I’m starving and my mouth feels gross. I forgot how awful it is to wake up after not brushing your teeth.” She made a face as it looked like she ran her tongue over her teeth. “Right, teeth first. Then food.”

I sat at the kitchen table across from Kelly. She was drinking water, still looking half asleep. Dean was gone and Bobby was alone in the library. I could see him through the open doors. Sam had yet to come back. This was likely going to be the best time to ask Kelly something that had been running through my mind. I needed to know.

“Hey, Kels?” She looked up at me. I had to ask while I still had the courage to. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know, but I had to ask. “How is everyone? Back home?” She tensed and looked away from me. I watched as she drank water, like she was buying time to figure out what to say. “Kels?”

Her expression was serious as she looked at me. “It wasn’t good.” Her voice was quiet.

“Tell me everything. Please.”

She sighed. “Michelle, when you left…things fell apart. Your sisters went crazy trying to find you. The cops gave up so they hired detectives. They posted on every social media possible, looking for signs of you. They all just cry. Your mom cried whenever she looked at your picture. Your nieces kept asking when you were coming back. It just…it wasn’t good. They were planning your funeral when I left.”

It was like I had been dunked into cold water. They gave up. It made sense but it just felt like they gave up. I nodded and muttered thanks.

“Mish…” Kelly reached out across the table but I recoiled back. I didn’t want her to touch me. I couldn’t deal with the sympathy I saw on her face.

“I’m back!” Sam came in suddenly with bags and set them on the table. He seemed to realize the tension in the air. “I…”

“Finally!” Dean came in from outside. “I’m starving, what’d you get?”

They moved through the kitchen, bickering as they pulled food out from the bags. I stared at the table. My family was holding my funeral. They thought I was dead. Like Kelly. _They thought I was dead._ My chest tightened and it felt like the world was spinning.

“Here,” I looked up at Kelly who was standing in front of me now. “Sam brought you some juice, some fruit and a sandwich.”

I stood up, grabbed the bottle of juice she held and an apple. I pushed past her and walked upstairs. The stupid kid’s transformer bag I stole was against the wall. I searched through it, trying to find my iPod. I needed to block everything out. I found it at the bottom of my bag. It wasn’t charged. I sat down against the wall. My family was having a funeral for me. The food was forgotten and I started to cry.

I woke up on the floor, gasping. My back and neck ached as I stood up, trying to stretch them out. It wasn’t the worst I’ve felt, but it was still uncomfortable. My eyes felt puffy and my head was pounding. I stood up, pushing myself up off the ground slowly. I was a little surprised that no one had woken me up. I went to the bathroom and washed my face, trying to feel more human. It wasn’t quite working. Despite just waking up, I still felt exhausted. 

I found my way downstairs. I could hear voices in the library but I ignored them, focusing on going to the kitchen. I bit into the apple that I had taken with me upstairs, chewing slowly while grabbing a glass of water. A hand touched my shoulder and I jumped, choking suddenly on the apple. I leaned over, coughing as a hand thumped my back. The apple dislodged from my throat and I spit it into the sink before turning to see who had scared me. Dean was there, hand in the air.

“You alright?” he asked. “We’ve been calling your name.”

“Yeah,” I said, not entirely meaning it. My heart was beating fast. “Don’t do that though,” I waved a hand in the general direction of him.

“Sorry,” he said. 

“It’s okay,” I waved him off. “You were calling me?” 

“Yeah, looked a little off there. You sure you’re alright?” He looked concerned. It was odd to see, to have it directed at me after the arguments we had already had. Like his brother, Dean had a presence. 

“Yeah,” I turned away from him and looked over at the other men in the library. Bobby was behind his desk and Sam was sitting with his legs sprawled across the couch as he read. “Anything I can do to help?”

Bobby looked up at me. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I can’t,” I said. Dean passed me, heading back to sit in one of the chairs. “So, anything I can do? Research wise?”

“Can you read ancient Sumerian?” Bobby asked.

“Um…no.”

“Latin?”

“No. Ancient languages were exactly a prerequisite in any school I went to.”

He sighed, not looking amused. “Can you read any language that ain’t English?”

“I know a fair amount of Old English, and I’ve picked up a bit of Dutch and German from University, probably not enough to read a text that’s not about fairy tales.” I had been terrible at French when they tried to teach me in elementary and high school. It was only the repetition of certain words that I had remembered because of looking through and comparing translations of fairy tales. 

“Fairy tales?” I looked over at Sam. He looked confused. 

“Yeah. Um, before I left university after Kelly died, I was doing a master's paper on an exploration of fairy tales and their development from cautionary warnings into the disney stories we tell today.”

“Really?” Sam sat up slightly. 

“Yeah, never finished it. Had all the preliminary research done, it was just a matter of writing my findings.” I stopped. The paper felt pointless after Kelly died. I had been adrift and it wasn’t like anyone cared about my research. I didn’t. I cleared my throat and looked back at Bobby. “So, anything like that?” 

He turned away from me. Sam looked at me apologetically while Dean seemed amused by the whole thing. “Okay…” I muttered. I wasn’t surprised by the rudeness, he had more important things on his mind. I wouldn’t hold it against him. “Do you have some paper then? And a pen?” 

Dean was the one who stood up and found me paper and a pen. I smiled at him before saying thanks. I left the room, moving to the porch. It was still dark outside but I could see the edges of light starting to rise in the distance. Another sunrise. I went years with rarely seeing them and now it was a consistent sight. I turned to the paper and started drawing. 

I was in the middle of doodling a cartoon version of Castiel, looking as serious as he usually did only wearing a party hat and holding a sign saying ‘party like it’s 1999’ when someone sat next to me. I jolted, not expecting anyone. Kelly leaned down, holding her head over the coffee cup she held in her hands. 

“You alright?” 

“Hm...yeah..” she muttered into the cup. Neither of us had ever been morning people. At least, I hadn’t been before this. I turned back to my drawing. 

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I didn’t try to start the conversation, enjoying the company without having to focus on participating in speaking. Kelly just stared off in the distance while she drank her coffee. 

It was interrupted by the sound of Jane inside the house. I could hear her telling them that she did not find the social company of men appeasing, and demanding to know where we were located. The door opened behind us. Jane walked around us and down the stairs. She stopped in front of us and sat. It was more than a little unnerving because she didn’t speak. She just stared. Kelly seemed to think so too because she broke the silence. 

“What’s up?” 

Jane tilted her head and looked above her. “The blessings of the Goddess.” 

“Forget I asked,” I heard Kelly mutter. 

“She means what brings you here?” I explained. “Is there something on your mind?”

“There is.” Jane stood up, drawing our attention to her. She looked over us. “You are well dressed.” I glanced down. I was in sweatpants and a shirt. Kelly was wearing yoga pants and a tank top. “It is time we train.”

This time both Kelly and I stared at her blankly before speaking in unison. “What?” 

“We train.”

Kelly stood up and looked like she was about to hide inside. “Nope. Not my thing. You train, I’m going back to sleep.” 

Jane struck forwards, faster than I expected. I reeled back but all she did was poke Kelly in the stomach. “Are you ill? Or with child?”

“Hey!” Kelly snapped, swatting Jane’s hand away. 

“Even after birthing a child, our women’s bodies do not look like yours. There is much to do.”

“How?” I asked. I had seen my sister during her pregnancy. “After pregnancy, it takes a lot of work to get rid of the fat you gain for the baby, especially if you’re not super skinny beforehand.”

“Look,” Jane motioned to herself. “What the Goddess grants you should be cherished. I have two young ones back home and yet I still train and hunt.”

Kelly and I stared at her in shock. 

“You have kids at home?” I asked. It was hard enough to know that I left my family, that they grieved for me and were going to bury an empty casket. I couldn’t imagine leaving children. 

Jane nodded. “I mated and was blessed with children from the Goddess.” 

“Aren’t you worried about them?” Kelly asked. She was on the same mind track that I was. “Why aren’t you panicking more? Or trying to get back?”

“This is a test from the Goddess and I will succeed. My children will be cared for by my clan and will be honoured with my success.” Jane looked us over carefully. “She has sent you to me. Since you are so insufficient with caring for what the Goddess gifts you with, I will ensure you take that care. We train.”

I looked at Kelly. She looked at me. We both didn’t move. I was weirdly grateful that I wasn’t the only one who lost more than they gained, but I didn’t understand how she could accept it all so easily. I also wasn’t sure if Jane was actually serious. She didn’t seem like the type to joke. Kelly looked like she was considering how fast she could run and hide. 

“NOW!” Jane yelled. Kelly dropped the coffee and I scrambled to stand. We both took off running in the direction that Jane pointed.    


I collapsed on the front steps. My chest was heaving as I tried to get air in. I could hear Kelly near me, muttering about dying again. 

“What the…what did you do to them?” I looked up to see Dean staring at us in alarm. 

“Training.”

“What?”

Jane stared at us in confusion and what could have been disgust. “I do not understand. You are this...sloppy? We did not run far.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve had to run like this before. The last time was forced in high school,” I said. 

“Then we will train until you don’t react like this.”

I felt Kelly hit me from where she was laying down. “Not today. Please.”

“We will start slow. I know now where you stand. Rest, we awaken early on the morrow.” She walked away from the house without another word.

Kelly looked up from the ground at me. “You sure we’re not in hell?”

I had to thank Jane. The running left me exhausted and more than a little sore. I wasn’t a fan of working out in general but it did let me sleep without dreaming. I was grateful for that. 

I sat in the kitchen, staring in the fridge and trying to decide if I would be able to handle eating something more solid. I settled on making toast when the men came in. 

“We should at least look into it,” Sam said, following Dean into the kitchen. 

“And do what?” Dean asked. “In case you didn’t notice, we kinda got bigger pro–” Dean cut himself off as he caught sight of me. They both stared at me while I waited for the toaster. 

Dean walked past me to the fridge. He opened the door while Sam sat down at the table. Dean grabbed a beer and held one out to me. “Want one?”

Sam made some sort of noise as if to stop his brother. I shook my head. 

The toast popped up and I quickly buttered it before I sat down at the table across from Sam. Dean joined us at the table, bringing along a carton of leftover Chinese food from the other day.

“How are you doing?” 

I looked over at Sam. I had just taken a bite of toast. I motioned for him to wait until I finished chewing. “Fine, I guess. All things considered. Training is…a bit much.”

“Yeah, you didn’t look like you were going to make it,” Dean said. 

“It felt like I wasn’t,” I admitted. “I can walk for miles, but run? That’s a whole different story apparently.” I cracked a smile when Dean snorted into his beer. 

“You should still be careful. You need to take care of yourself if you’re recovering. You haven’t left this kitchen for almost three hours.”

I looked at Sam. “What?” I wasn’t too surprised that I was moving slow, but I had lost track of time without realizing it, without doing anything. That wasn’t good. I felt like I was slowly losing pieces of myself. I didn’t know what I had started losing first, the fat on my body or my mind. I bit the inside of my cheek. Just enough to try and keep my focus on the world in front of me. 

I vaguely saw Sam and Dean look at each other. Before either of them could voice any concern, or thought, voices raised down the hall. They brought everything into sharp focus and I blinked at Kelly and Jane as they entered. It was more like Kelly stormed in and half walked into the doorway before she caught herself while Jane followed sedately.

“We will start with running and stretches,” Jane said as if continuing a conversation I hadn’t been a part of. “You are in no shape to fight. For now, we get you used to your body and the way it moves, and can move.” She looked at me as she said, “we will get your strength back.” 

“I don’t want to train!” Kelly said. “I want to enjoy life, not spend hours forced to do something that sucks!” 

“If you want to survive, you will.” 

“Surviving is not the same as living!” Kelly snapped. 

We all stared at them. Kelly was angry and I could tell there was probably more to it. “It’s a good idea,” I said softly. It didn’t break the tension but they were both focused on me now. “We know this world, Kels. We know what could happen here, what does happen here. It’s better to be safe than sorry.” 

“Why?” Her face changed suddenly. Anger twisted her usual softer features and I could see tears gathering in her eyes. She always cried when she was really angry. As if her body couldn’t contain all of the emotion she felt. I was usually fascinated by it but now I just wanted it to stop. “It doesn’t matter if you try and be healthy or be careful or whatever! If you’re meant to die, you die!” That explained it. 

I stood up fast, gripping the table to stop the sudden sway of the room. I moved forwards. I wrapped an arm around Kelly’s shoulders and maneuvered her out of the kitchen. She wouldn’t want the men to see her cry. She wouldn’t want anyone to see her like this. 

I guided her out the front door and to the side of the building. Close enough to call for help if we needed it, but far enough for some privacy. 

“Kels.” 

All it took was one word for her to start talking. If I hadn’t known her for years, I wouldn’t have been able to grasp what she was saying between the sobs. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just…I just want to feel everything again. I was dead! And now it’s like I’m not allowed to enjoy the fact I’m alive! It’s just work!” 

I tried to quash the irrational anger that I felt at her words. I knew it had to be hard having gone from being dead to alive, but I couldn’t help it. At least she knew what had happened, what was happening. She hadn’t watched people die. I took a deep breath, cutting off my own thoughts. “Life is work,” I finally said. She glared at me in response. “It’s also joy. Maybe you’ve forgotten but people generally have to work if they want to survive, whatever way they can. And if you want to go out and enjoy life, to feel things and eat good food…then you need to survive.”

She wiped at her face. “Yeah. Yeah, it still sucks.”

I snorted. “That’s a light way of putting it. Least she’s willing to start us off slow.”

“Thank god for small mercies,” Kelly said. “Come on, let’s go. If we hide long enough she might decide we’re healthy enough to start stealth training or something.”

**[tbc]**


	5. An Unwanted Explanation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Becky arrives...with news from a prophet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who is reading this. If you like it let me know. Things are starting to get heated. Also, I think I will start a new story soon that just has Kelly's POVs in it, as well as some others. Maybe. Let me know what you think.

_"Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way._

_When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck." – Joseph Heller_

Running was exhausting but it was helping in a weird way. I had never been a runner before, had never enjoyed it but with Jane guiding me in the proper way to run, I could focus on my body and not on my thoughts. It was oddly peaceful. It also helped that I was finally starting to eat regular food. I almost forgot how good things tasted. 

Despite the running, I wasn’t able to sleep for longer than a couple of hours at a time. Since I was of no use in research, and I didn’t want to bother the men, I decided to put myself to work cleaning. It let me be alone.

Kelly’s excitement at being alive and Jane’s easy acceptance was grating at times. I had spent months on my own. Now it was near impossible. This gave me time to be myself, without feeling like I needed to hide how I felt from them. It hid me from everyone’s stares. I kept feeling like something terrible was going to happen and it seemed like they knew. 

I walked down the stairs. I had showered after cleaning the upstairs bathroom. I shuddered at the thought of it. Bobby obviously hadn’t been up there since he was in a wheelchair, but it had been disgusting. I followed the voices to the library where I found the boys and Kelly. 

I stood in the doorway, watching the easy way Kelly and Dean traded barbs while Bobby ignored them. I tried to decide how to go about broaching the subject of the bathroom. I just wanted someone to notice, and maybe hopefully a promise that they would be cleaner. Cleaning it was a distraction, sure, but it was still gross.

“Are you going to stand there all day? You know it makes people nervous when you do that,” Kelly said. She was looking over at me with a smirk on her face. I moved in, not yet sitting. She was right though. Anytime I stood for more than a minute, people started to ask me if I wanted to sit down. I’ve had people bring me chairs before just so that I’d stop standing. 

“No,” I said. “I just…I finished cleaning the upstairs bathroom.” The men in the room all turned to look at me. I felt like running under their gazes, suddenly feeling like they could see every single part of me, and forced myself to ignore it. They were just listening. “It was super gross. I just…I spent like an hour or more cleaning it. Please don’t let it get that gross again.” 

“Well, sweetheart,” Dean said. “Don’t go in if you don’t like it.”

“Actually, Dean,” Sam said. “She has a point.” 

Dean turned quickly to face him, raising his eyebrows. 

“You are gross,” Sam explained. “Trust me, I’ve been cleaning up after you all our lives.” 

“Well I’m sorry you can’t handle living with a real man, Sammy,” Dean retorted, a sarcastic smile on his face. 

“A real man – ”

“Thank you,” Bobby cut both of the boys off. He gave them a look that basically told them to shut up before he turned back to me. “I ‘ppreciate it.” 

“You’re welcome,” I said, more than a little grateful that someone seemed to value it. That also meant he likely wouldn’t mind me cleaning other places. Good. I needed something to do.

He nodded before he turned back to his book. 

“There is an intruder.” 

I turned to see Jane behind me. She was looking past me, at the men in the room. Sam and Dean instantly stood up, pulling out weapons from various areas near them in the room. 

“Stay here!” Dean said as they pushed past me. Bobby was moving his chair away from the desk. I stepped into the room, moving away from the door and from Jane. I headed towards Kelly who got up off the couch. 

“Who is it?” Kelly asked. 

I didn’t respond. There were too many choices, too many options of things that could have found the men. I looked over at Kelly to see her leaning over the couch, looking out the window. I went to yank her back. Being seen wasn’t a good idea if you didn’t know what was there. 

“It’s Becky!” she yelped as she nearly fell off the couch when I pulled her back.

“Becky?” My curiosity overrode my fear just enough to draw me to the window. I kneeled on the couch next to Kelly and lowered myself down as far as I could while seeing out the window. The girl waving to the boys was familiar but it was only when she held out her arms for a hug, and Sam stepping back, that it clicked. That Becky. 

They went through the procedures of having her cross the salt line at the door, as well as being splashed with holy water and touched by silver. I appreciated the care they took at it. 

They were about to let her inside, when Jane stepped in the way and stopped them. Kelly and I looked at each other again and got up off the couch. 

“ –will not allow this stranger inside this place where we sleep.”

“Look, Amazon…” 

Kelly shoved me forwards and I stumbled into the doorway. I glared back at her quickly as the conversation stopped. She smiled at me. 

“Jane,” I said. She looked at me sharply. “I’m sure it’s alright. I doubt they would let anyone in who would harm us.” I tried to say it with the confidence I didn’t fully feel. They’d try but there were never any promises with them. 

Jane looked back at Becky. Her expression didn’t change. My reasoning wasn’t enough. 

I sighed and looked at the men. “Did you do all of the tests? You know, to make sure she’s not a shapeshifter, a demon or…anything else?” Becky looked like she wasn’t sure if she should be insulted. 

Dean looked at me like I was stupid. “Obviously.”

I turned back to Jane. “Okay, so she’s human, no worries. Look at her. If anything happens, you could take her.” Jane looked Becky over. She didn’t say anything for a moment before she finally moved out of the way. She watched Becky and followed closely as she was led into the library.   
  


* * *

  
I sat on the arm of the chair that Kelly was sitting in. Jane remained in the doorway, watching it all. Becky had seated herself as close to Sam as possible and he looked like he was going to be the first to try and run. Dean remained standing.

“Why are you here, Becky?” Dean asked, trying not to look too amused at his brother’s situation. 

“Okay, well,” she looked around the room, excited. “I took notes this time, it was a lot,” she explained. She pulled out a notebook from her bag and opened it, flipping pages until she got to the right page. “Chuck sent me. Obviously.” I felt Kelly tense slightly before she shifted forwards in her seat. “Okay,” Becky said again. “Um, the gatekeepers have arrived and the tears between the worlds deepen. The vessels are entering and the old worlds die. More are coming. Now the war begins, since you two,” she motioned to Sam and Dean, “refused the call, more are coming until the vessels are chosen and the reckoning begins. Basically, until you say yes. I think. I don’t really know, sometimes he confuses me.”

Her words played through my head. I vaguely heard Dean say something but her words repeated over and over. My chest tightened and my throat suddenly felt like it was closing. She was wrong. I heard wrong. 

“What do you mean the old worlds die?” I asked, my voice cracking as I tried not to panic. Goosebumps ran up my arms. I looked at Becky and waited.

“Well,” she said, swallowing slightly. Her excitement dimmed. “He said that once the vessels, you know, come through, the doors close. The…” she looked quickly at her notebook before looking back at me. “The tears in the universe try to repair themselves…but after the chosen come through, the only way to fix it is destroying itself. I think. That’s all he really said. He didn’t really explain.”

I stood up. The room felt like it was closing in on me. I tried to breathe but it suddenly wasn’t enough. I was hyperventilating. “Everything? The whole world?” I looked at Becky who gave a small nod. Someone touched my arm but I shook them off. It was gone. All of it. “Oh god,” I moved, suddenly needed space and air and to be somewhere else. I couldn’t be here. I stepped forward and the room spun. My sight went black and I fell forwards into nothing.   
  


* * *

  
My head was pounding. I moved, trying to block the light I could see through my eyelids. Everything hurt. 

“She’s awake.”

I sat up and my head spun. I felt myself falter and almost crashed back down again. 

“Woah, take it easy.” A large hand touched my back and helped stabilize me as I sat up. “Slowly now.” 

The light was blinding as I opened my eyes and it took a few moments before it felt like I could see again. 

“Here.” A glass of water was handed to me. “Drink slowly.” I grabbed it and drank it faster than I probably should have. The cold of it felt good. I finally looked up. 

Sam was kneeling next to me. 

“What happened?” I had a vague idea but one never knew in this world. Anything was possible. It was never clear how terrifying a thought that could be until now. 

“You fainted,” Dean called out. He was leaning on the desk. Kelly knelt in front of me but remained silent. She looked concerned and sad. I remembered suddenly what made me pass out. Becky was here and claimed my world was destroyed. 

“I meant...what, what happened after that? Where’s Becky?”

“She left,” Kelly said softly. “After you passed out, she had nothing left to say so the guys walked her out. We’ve just been waiting for you. We gotta go to Washington.”

“What?” I looked at her confused. “Why?” I didn’t want to go to Washington. Bobby’s was safe. Outside of the general fear and world-shattering news. 

Sam finally stood up and moved back as he checked his phone. “We’ve been trying to reach Cas, but no luck so far.”

“Why do we have to go to Washington? Who’s the we in this?” My head felt like it throbbed with every noise. “Do you have any pain killers?”

“Yeah, hold on.” Sam left and Dean followed him out. No one answered the important questions yet. 

Jane stepped closer. “For an alpha, you seem...yielding.” 

“What? Alpha?” It didn’t make sense. “What do you mean?”

“You are a vessel. That makes you an alpha of your world.” I wasn’t an alpha, in this world or mine. I was nowhere near alpha material in any sense of the word. 

The guys came back in the room and I was prevented from asking Jane about it further. She stepped back as Sam handed me a tablet and another glass of water. 

“Thanks,” I murmured. I took the tablet. I didn’t know what it was but I was certain the boys would have strong enough pain killers and that they wouldn’t poison me. 

“Okay, listen up!” Dean’s voice vibrated through my skull. I winced but tried to focus on him. “You’re all apparently vessels, and there are more coming, which is bullshit. If Lucifer or Michael finds you and entices you, we’re all screwed. I’m not talking ‘bout just us, but the whole world. So say no to angels, no matter what they promise you.”

“I might be blonde, but I’m not stupid,” Kelly said. “None of us are. We know angels lie and they want to end the world. Don’t worry.”

“Even if they promise to take you home?” Dean asked, raising his eyebrows. 

I dropped the glass I was holding. I heard it crack as it hit the ground. Could they send us home? How would that even work? From what I remembered, angels burned through the vessels. The only ones they didn’t burn through were the key ones, the Winchesters.

“Michelle?” 

My head snapped up to see everyone watching me. I was breathing harder than I should have been. I picked up the glass on the floor. I was lucky it was carpet and not hardwood. There was a crack running down the side.

“Michelle, you can’t trust them. Or anything they say.”

I looked at Kelly. “I know. Sorry, I just, it doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t be able to send us home if we were used as vessels. They burn through you. They can’t send you home if there’s no you to send. It’s an empty promise. I know that.” I saw the hesitancy in her eyes. “I know it.” 

“Okay, right, good,” Dean said. “Sammy, we’re leaving in ten.”   
  


* * *

  
It was finally explained to me why the boys were going to Washington. After informing us that everything we knew and loved was destroyed, Becky also told us that we could find the next set of vessels in Washington. Somewhere near Forks, which was apparently a real place. 

The brothers packed up and left. There was no way to explain how grateful I was to not be going. There was more safety in Bobby’s house than anywhere else in this world. I tried not to think of Becky with the obnoxious smile and excitement about seeing the boys, blinding her to the rest of us. She wasn’t right. She couldn’t be. 

I threw my energy into anything that would take my mind off of it. I cleaned in an effort to pay Bobby back for something neither of us controlled. I ran around the scrap yard with Jane and Kelly. It didn’t feel like it was enough. 

I woke up suddenly, inhaling sharply and struggling for freedom. Something was pinning me down! The demon had me! It had me and-- Something hit my cheek hard.

“Michelle!”

My eyes suddenly focused as the dream faded. Kelly was leaning over me. “Kels?”

“Oh thank god!” The pressure on my left arm let go as she leaned back.

The room around us was dark. The dream faded fast. Kelly was kneeling on my right arm. She moved and I sat up. I put my back against the wall, rubbed the spot she had put her weight on, and looked at her. She was staring at me like she had never seen me before...like she was afraid. 

“What the hell were you dreaming about?” 

I stared at her. The dream was over. All that remained was a sense of fear and panic. “I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know?” she hissed at me. “You scared me halfway back to being a ghost! One minute I was dreaming about fishing, and the next I get smacked awake because of you screaming and thrashing about!” 

“You dreamt of fishing?”

“Not the point!” She snapped. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I…” I couldn’t tell her. It was flashes of the diner, black eyes and Edgar’s face pushed into the stove. I couldn’t tell her that I remembered what burning flesh smelled like and how it clung to me for days. “I don’t know.” She looked like she didn’t believe me. She didn’t push though. I stayed awake once she fell back asleep.  
  


* * *

  
“Here,” I looked up at Kelly, wincing as the afternoon sun hit my eyes. She handed me something as she sat next to me on the back porch. I took it and looked it over. It was a necklace with a charm on it. 

“Thanks?” I asked, confused at the sudden gift. 

“It’s an anti-possession necklace.” My eyes widened and I looked at her. “I asked Bobby. He had some. After your nightmare, I thought this might help. It’s not like whatever Cas burned onto the boys' ribs to hide them from angels, but it’ll help against the demons.” I put it on quickly, shoving it down over my head before I leaned over and hugged her tightly. “Woah, okay,” she gave a small laugh. 

“Thank you.” My throat was tight and I could feel tears start to build in my eyes. She was giving me protection. 

“Of course,” she said. She pulled back out of the hug. “Come on, we’re here together. We gotta look out for each other if we're going to survive the Winchesters.” 

I tried not to laugh. I glanced over at her and I could see she was struggling to maintain her composure. It broke the dam. I couldn’t stop the giggling once it started and as it changed into real laughter, something lifted. I looked over at Kelly who grinned at me. 

“It’s pretty weird.”

“Oh, it’s totally weird,” she said. “And...do you know what month it is?”

I looked at her confused. That was a sudden change in topic. “Not really...maybe February?” Her eyes widened. 

“Shit.”

Any of the previous joy faded fast. “What do you mean by that?” 

She wiped a hand across her mouth before looking at me. “I don’t want to freak you out, okay? But if it’s following the season notes that I saw, like season five, then I think we might expect zombies.” 

“What?” I nearly shouted. 

“Shh!” She said, looking back at the door behind us quickly. “Look, I don’t know. Maybe us being here changed things. I just, we need to survive this and if we’re going to do that, then we gotta know what’s coming, right?” 

I held my breath, just in an effort to calm the sudden panic and flight instinct that was telling me to run as fast as possible. I tried to let it out slowly. Not for the first time, I was glad that I was not alone. “What are we going to do?”

“What can we do?” Kelly said, shrugging. “It might not happen. We were never in the storyline, I know that much. Maybe our presence here changed something, like it’s an alternate universe off of our...okay, I know that sounds crazy,” she said quickly. “We’ll learn to shoot.” She nodded to herself.

“What?” 

“It will be fine. There’s a target range right in front of us,” she motioned ahead to where the trees in the yard were wrapped in some sort of lining. 

“We will train harder.” Both of us nearly jumped out of our skins as Jane appeared out of nowhere from the side of the porch. “We have only worked on endurance until now.” Jane spoke suddenly, her voice high enough so that only we could hear it. She seemed to grasp the need for secrecy between us. “If what you say is true and these...zombies...are coming, then we increase training. We start on defensive manoeuvres immediately.” 

“What?” Kelly looked at me in surprise.

“We will begin training harder. You are both weak. You need to be faster and stronger.” 

“Fuck,” Kelly muttered. She shook her head and sighed. “Yeah, that’ll be good.” She looked over at me. “We’re here together. We’ll figure it out.” She smiled at me but it looked a little forced. “Besides, we are living in the same house as the Winchesters. Tell me you don’t want a chance to ride that ride.” I shoved her slightly to the side. I heard her cackle with laughter. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I _obviously_ meant the Impala.” She did not. 

“Shut up,” I muttered. As much as we had joked about the men when they were fictional, it was far different when they were real and alive in front of you. It was different when you faced the dangers of this world.   
  


* * *

  
The boys returned the next day. The car signalled their arrival and we were already in the yard with Jane when it stopped in front of the house. The boys stepped out and as soon as they saw us, they waved at us to join them. Jane went first and Kelly had to grab me by the arm and drag me over. They had been gone for days. The men were at the trunk but there was no one else with them.

“We need you to see this,” Dean said. “Ain’t gonna be pretty, but with all this gatekeeper bullshit, we gotta know if you recognize them.” Dean opened the trunk and lifted part of the tarp that was covering something in it. 

It wasn’t human. I tried to ignore the sudden rolling of my stomach. The thing folded up in the truck looked like it was once human, but there was no hair and the skin had an ashy blue tone to it. It was missing a nose.

“This creepy fucker blasted his way through a forest...with this.” Dean held up a stick. It looked about the length of my forearm. 

“Is that...is that Voldemort?” Kelly asked. She looked a little green herself. 

I saw Sam hit Dean and mutter “I told you!”

“How...how do you know?” I asked softly. 

“Well he doesn’t have a nose, for one,” Kelly said. “How many people without noses that run around with sticks do you know?”

“None! I’m not supposed to know any!” A cold feeling was creeping up my spine and goosebumps rose on my arms.

“Well, you’re gonna like this even less.” Dean moved the rest of the tarp. My stomach instantly heaved. I turned and bent over, throwing up. 

The other body wasn’t mangled, but it was the empty look in his eyes. He was human and very dead. 

“You okay?” I felt someone’s hand on my back. I shook my head.

“Is that...is that Joey?” Kelly asked quietly. 

“Who?”

“Joey. From Friends. It’s a show about...friends. He’s…” Kelly’s voice faded as blood pounded in my ears. The image of Joey’s dead eyes, the bloodstains on Voldemort's clothes merged with the memories of the diner and the demon. I shut my eyes. My heart felt like it was going to burst. 

“I...I have to go.” I pushed whoever was touching me off and stumbled away. I wasn’t sure where I was going, the stacks of cars blended into one another but I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t breathe. I started to run. 

I tripped multiple times but I kept going. I just needed to go. I couldn’t be here. Everything was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrong. It was--

I was shoved hard. I fell, and before I could get up, my hands were pinned against the ground. I thrashed, trying to get away.

“Michelle!” A voice suddenly cut through my thoughts. It said something I didn’t understand but was soothing. That wasn’t right. 

It was as if the fog around my mind suddenly faded and I could see clearly. Jane was staring down at me. She had me pinned to the ground. 

“Focus on me. On my words. Close your eyes and listen.” Jane...Jane was safe. I did as I was told. Despite not knowing her long, she had been adamant so far in ensuring our survival. More than anyone else. “Listen to the wind in the trees, _hear_ the trees and the birds. Feel the ground beneath you. Smell the earth. Now, take a deep breath and hold it, before releasing it slowly.” 

I carefully followed her instructions. Focusing on the world around me seemed to calm me. I couldn’t be in the diner if I was outside and you couldn’t feel pain in a dream. Jane’s weight helped dig the gravel into my back. 

“Are you well now?” 

I stared up at her before nodding. My body still felt jittery, like I had eaten ten pixie sticks and was running on a sugar high. 

“Come.” 

Jane put an arm around me and led me back through the yard. I had gotten further than I thought I would. As we came into view of the car, Kelly’s face changed from fear to relief. She ran over to me. Jane finally moved off and she was quickly replaced by Kelly hugging the life out of me. I hugged her back tightly. 

“Are you okay?” She asked softly. 

“I don’t know,” I answered as honestly as I could. I suddenly felt like crying. 

“Okay.” She pulled back. “The boys are going to take care of the bodies. Burn them just in case.”

I shook my head. “I can’t go there. I can’t.” I couldn’t bear to smell more burning flesh.

Kelly frowned in confusion but nodded. “Okay.”

“Come,” Jane looked at me. “We will run.” She looked at Kelly. “We will return to the house when finished.”

She motioned for me to start. As we ran, she directed me and pushed me to run faster. I fell into it as if I was running from the panic and fear that coursed through me. By the time I got back to Bobby’s, I felt better. I was out of breath, but I no longer felt like I was crawling out of my skin, or that I needed to hit something or just scream. Jane looked at me with a smile before she turned to survey the area. It was okay now.   
  


* * *

  
I couldn’t sleep. 

My muscles protested as I climbed over Kelly to get out of the bed. I forgot how much space she could take up despite being short. Thankfully she was a deep sleeper and didn’t so much as stir when I left the room. We were lucky that Jane had taken to sleeping under the stars, as she claimed, instead of in the room. It was odd enough sharing a bed with Kelly. There would have been even less space with someone else. 

I didn’t know what time it was, but the house was dark. I went down the stairs slowly, trying not to make noise. I wasn’t sure where Bobby slept but I didn’t want to wake him if he was sleeping. There was a light on in the library. I headed for it. 

Dean was sitting on a chair, a small table in front of him that had pieces of what looked like a gun laid out on it. He had a rag in one hand and one of the pieces in the other. Sam was sitting on the couch with his laptop open. I tapped on the doorframe and they both looked up. 

“Michelle?” Sam frowned as he sat up. “What are you doing up?” 

I glanced at the clock in the kitchen. It was close to four in the morning. That meant I had been lying in bed for hours, unable and hesitant to sleep.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I shrugged. “Do you mind...can I hang out here?” I waited until he nodded, ignoring the look the brothers shot each other. I gave a small smile as I entered and looked around. Sam moved his legs off of the couch but I debated the best way to sit where I could see everything. I sat on the floor, closer to the desk and near the couch. I could see both exits this way. 

“You know there’s a chair, right?” Dean asked, picking up another piece to clean. “And a couch.” 

“Yeah.” I didn’t explain that the floor felt more comforting like there was nothing to hinder me if I needed to escape. 

We sat in silence when I didn’t elaborate. Memories of dreams and real-life kept appearing as I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure what was worse. What I knew had happened or what I was imagining. I tried to focus on the sounds of the men.

“You don’t sleep much.” Dean pulled me out of my thoughts.

“No,” I agreed. “Not anymore.” 

“Why?” 

I looked over at him as best as I could. “Nightmares.” It should have been obvious. Outside of the nightmares, it was sheer will that kept me awake. I wasn’t safe when I slept. 

“What about?” Sam looked up from his laptop. “Sometimes it helps to talk about it.” I saw the look Dean threw him. The boys weren’t usually big on sharing things. 

“Just...things.” I didn’t elaborate and they didn’t ask. I was grateful for that. We sat in silence until Dean finally stood up and stretched. I assumed he finished cleaning the gun since he rebuilt it. 

“I need some air. Maybe grab some food. Want anything?”

“I’m good,” Sam said, not even looking up from the laptop. Dean turned towards me and raised his eyebrows.

I shook my head. The only thing I’d want was coffee and there was a machine in the kitchen. He looked at Sam again before leaving. I closed my eyes and tried to force all my thoughts out of my head except for the chorus of a song on repeat. I opened my eyes when Sam spoke.

“You know about Jess, right?” He looked a bit uncomfortable and I was unsure of why he was asking. 

“Yeah. Why?” 

He shifted on the couch before lowering the screen of his laptop and turning towards me slightly. “Well, after...after what happened, I had nightmares for months.” 

I tried not to sigh. I shouldn’t have been surprised he was trying to talk about this again now that Dean wasn’t here. “I know, I mean, they showed that.”

It was silent again, and awkward. I needed my music back. Simply just so I had something to fill up the silence. I looked over at Sam and the laptop. An idea hit. He was about to speak as I interrupted him. “Do you have an iPod?”

Whatever he was going to say was gone as he looked confused at my question. He nodded. 

“Could...could I charge mine on your laptop? Like do you have a cord I can use?” 

“Yeah, sure. I’ll grab it.” He started moving, putting the laptop down on the table in front of him. 

I grinned at him before I got up. “I’ll be right back.” I tried to stay quiet as I went back upstairs to the room to get my iPod. Kelly was still asleep. I went back slowly, iPod still clutched in my hand. If I could get this working, it would be a relief. I hadn’t had music, my music, since the day after I fled Gainsboro when it died. 

Sam was sitting back on the couch when I walked in. He motioned for the iPod. I handed it over and watched as he looked at the port on it before digging into a bag. Within seconds he pulled out a cord. He tried it and when it fit, he plugged it into his computer. 

“There,” he said. “It’s charging.”

“Thank you!” I felt the tension in my chest unfurl. “I really mean it.” I was going to have music again.

He watched me for a couple of minutes as I sat down on the couch across from him. “It’s important to you,” he said. I knew he was talking about the music.

“It calms me down,” I said softly. “When I have a bad day, or I’m upset, I can just blast music and it...it settles me.” It was also the last thing I had from home. 

“Settles you how?” he asked. 

“Well, keeps me from murdering anyone,” I tried to joke. It didn’t seem to work. “The type of music I listen to depends on the mood I’m in. Sometimes I can pull myself out of a funk with the right stuff, lately…it doesn’t...it doesn’t really work but it keeps me distracted. I need that now.” 

Sam looked concerned, like he was going to reach out and touch me. I stood up, ignoring it. “I should go shower. Kelly should be up soon. I should get ready while it’s free.” I looked back at him. “I really appreciate this. It’s...it’s the only thing I have from home.” I turned and fled before my emotions got out of control. I couldn’t help but smile as I headed back upstairs. I was going to have my music back.   
  


* * *

  
That afternoon we were all gathered in the library. 

“What’s up?” Kelly asked. The men looked serious. I watched as they exchanged expressions before Dean finally ran a hand down his face. 

“We gotta talk about yesterday,” Dean finally said. 

“What about it?” I was sitting next to Kelly on the couch. Jane remained standing near the door, arms crossed as she watched the proceedings carefully. 

“You knew...you recognized the bodies yesterday, right?” I looked up at Sam, where he was leaning against the desk. He was looking at us intently and when I made eye contact, it felt like he could see through me. I looked away. 

“Yeah, it was Voldemort and Joey. I mean, unless they were someone else here. Are there body doubles across universes? Does it work like that?” Kelly’s face scrunched up as she thought about it. “My head hurts thinking about it.” 

“What’s the point?” I asked. I looked at Sam. “You recognized Voldemort too, didn’t you?” I remembered hearing him tell Dean. 

He made a face, pursing his lips, as he shrugged one shoulder. “Only him though.” He looked over at Dean. “Becky...told us something. About you.” 

“Me?” I recoiled slightly as if I could avoid it. My stomach tightened and I swallowed. I had a feeling nothing good was about to happen. 

“Well, not _you_ , you and Kelly.” He paused. “Becky said there would...gatekeepers

“Gatekeepers?” I vaguely remembered the word. I had heard it before. 

“Yeah, uh, two people who would know every vessel who arrives. Considering how you both know the ones we found, we...we think that’s you.”

I didn’t like how he was staring at me. He looked sad, almost resigned and that couldn’t be a good sign. Not with Sam. 

I shook my head. “We-we can’t be. We can’t be gatekeepers.” 

“Michelle…”

“Stop.” My voice was hard. “Let me think.” I ignored Sam and leaned forwards, elbows resting on my knees. I knew why Kelly hadn’t said anything. If we were...that meant this wasn’t an accident. We would have been brought on purpose. That didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t fair. 

“That...might make some sense,” Kelly said softly. I looked over at her. She had pulled her feet up beneath her so she was curled up on the couch. One of her arms was wrapped around her knees. “I don’t know how much I believe this, or if I do at all, but...I was alone as a ghost.” Her jaw clenched and she sighed. “I spent two years as a ghost and I never...I never saw anyone else like me. At least, this would be why.” 

I reached over and grabbed her hand. I tried not to scowl. It was an instant reaction to the idea of being purposely drawn here. I couldn’t imagine being alone in death, especially watching everyone you knew. That sounded horrible. I just...I couldn’t believe this either. 

I leaned over, my side resting against Kelly’s as I tried to relay some sort of comfort. She leaned her head against mine before pulling away. She didn’t let go though. 

“It sounds stupid,” I said, before realizing the timing of it. “Not you,” I said quickly, looking at Kelly. She gave me an over-exaggerated unimpressed look. “I mean the gatekeeper thing. Like, I get that there could be parallel universes, studies are made into it, but...there’s a whole world here. Why would they need vessels from other worlds? There can’t only be two perfect vessels in every world, especially if angels aren’t a thing anywhere else.”

“You don’t have angels?” Sam asked.

“Not like this,” I motioned around us. “There’s no actual smiting happening. It’s just belief. Like….the way normal people believe in them here.” I took a breath. The anxiousness I was feeling was starting to show in my voice. “Look, there’s no proof. Two is not a statistical fact. We don’t know Jane!” 

“That’s true,” Kelly said. “That’s two against three.” 

“You’re all here.” All of us jumped as Castiel appeared in the room. I held a hand to my heart, trying to slow the sudden pounding. Castiel turned to the men. “You are aware that you are supposed to protect them, not kill them.”

“No one told us they’d be trying to kill us!” Dean argued back. “Besides, we only killed one. He killed the other one as we got there.” Dean crossed his arms over his chest.

“Does it even matter?” Kelly asked, looking between them. “Won't the angels just resurrect them like they do to them when _they_ die?” she pointed at the brothers. 

“They are secondary vessels. While important to Heaven, they are not as important as Dean or Sam.” 

“Wait,” I spoke up. “Are we secondary too?”

“As Gatekeepers, you are essential. That does not mean that you should not be cautious.” Castiel looked between Kelly and I. 

“Wait, we don’t know if we are gatekeepers. We never agreed on that. And what do you mean essential?”

Castiel straightened and looked at Kelly. “If you knew the vessels, there is no question. You are the Gatekeepers.” He said it so matter of fact. “A Gatekeeper is a bridge between worlds, between vessels. They are protected.”

I stared at him in surprise. “In what way?”

“I don’t know.” Castiel sighed. “There is much we don’t know about the Gatekeepers. They weren’t...we did not expect them to be activated. That was not...that was not Heaven’s plan.”

“Well, what if we don’t want to be?” Kelly asked. “Gatekeepers, I mean.”

“There is no choice.”

“What?” Both Kelly and I snapped. Jane spoke before any of us could react further. 

“And I? The women do not know me. Am I not one of these...vessels? 

Castiel tilted his head as he stared at her. “You were not known to them? I will look into this.” He disappeared in an instant and I stared at the spot. I was never going to get used to that. 

“I need a drink.” I heard Dean mutter. 

“Me too,” Kelly said. Her head popped up from where she was resting it on one hand. “We should go to a bar!” 

“What?” All of us turned to look at her. 

“Yeah. We need to blow off some steam, get out of this house! I’m sure Bobby would like a break. I would!” 

“You know what?” Dean nodded. “Not a bad idea. We could use a break.” 

“Great!” Kelly jumped up off the couch. “When are we leaving?”

**[tbc]**


	6. A Little Nonsense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The small group tries to relieve some tension and Jane takes on the boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for checking this fic out! Please review if you like it and if you don't. We'd really like to know your thoughts.

_“A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.”_   
_―_ _Anonymous_

Despite my excitement about being back in the car, I wasn’t looking forward to this. Kelly had spent the last hour trying to convince me it was a good idea. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, according to her, and if I wasn’t scared about being surrounded by more people I didn’t know, I would have agreed. I did though. I felt guilty for earlier, for not thinking about her and what it must have been like as a ghost. 

I stood outside the door to the bar, hearing the wave of noise every time the door opened. Kelly, Dean and Jane already went in. I didn’t know if I could do this. There were too many people in there, people who could be anyone or anything. 

“Hey,” a hand touched the small of my back. I looked up at Sam. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. I can take you back, but Dean and I...we’re here with you. Nothing’s going to happen. You’re safe with us.” 

I scoffed. I couldn’t help myself. “No offence, Sam, but that’s not comforting.” He looked offended so I tried to explain. “Think about it, I mean, most of the people you spend long periods of time with end up dying and mainly because it comes down to them or your brother, or you. I don’t blame you for it, I’d be the same way with my family or Kelly,” I said considering she was the only one here that I was close with. “But if everyone in that bar was possessed, you can't tell me that if it came down to me or your brother, you’d choose me. Forgive me for being blunt, but I know better. I know I should be safer with you than on my own, but I’m not safe. I know that. I don’t need you lying to me to make me feel better.” He definitely looked offended, and somewhat startled. I wondered if anyone called them out on it before. I didn’t mean to be cruel, I was just...I was scared. 

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just on edge.”

“No,” he interrupted me. “You’re not wrong, and I won't be sorry about it, but I will promise you that we’ll try. For all of you. You’re here because of us, the least we can do is try to keep you safe.” He looked sincere and I couldn’t help but smile back. 

“Thanks.” I wouldn’t put too much faith in it, but I appreciated the thought. I could rely on that much. I took a deep breath and opened the door. “Shall we?”   
  


* * *

  
We crammed into a booth. Jane, Kelly and I were on one side, Dean and Sam on the other. I was on the inside, as far as I could go. 

“So, what’s your poison?” Dean asked. 

“I do not understand,” Jane said. “Why would one drink poison? Is that common in this world?”

“He means what do you want to drink,” Kelly explained. “I’ll have a beer.” 

“Ah, then I will partake and taste what passes for mead here,” Jane replied. 

“She means beer too,” Kelly said. 

“Okay…” Dean looked at me. “What about you?”

“Juice, if they have it. Coke if they don’t.” 

“Any vodka?” he asked. I shook my head. I wasn’t looking to add alcohol to my current state of mind. 

“Alright,” Dean nodded. He pushed himself out of the booth and headed to the bar. 

It wasn’t long before almost everyone had left the table. Kelly and Dean left to play pool. He didn’t believe that she might pose a challenge, even slightly. Jane was watching people dance. She looked like she was considering challenging someone, possibly to a drinking game. Sam sat across from me. 

“They’ll be okay.”

“I know,” I turned my gaze away from them to look at him. I gave a small smile. “I just…” I couldn’t explain the need to know that they were okay. Kelly was the only thing I had left and Jane...she was more alone in this world than we were. I pulled myself out of that train of thought. “Dean might be the one that needs looking out for.”

He looked amused. “Dean’s great at pool.”

I shrugged. “Kelly’s weirdly good, despite the fact she rarely plays. Least, she was before she died.” I didn’t expect her to win, but I had the feeling she’d surprise him. I looked back at them. Dean was watching Kelly shoot. His eyebrows raised when she sunk a ball. She looked surprised herself but turned and grinned at him. I wasn’t too worried about Kelly, though I suspected she’d have a rough morning tomorrow. Jane on the other hand was a wild card. She was already intense when sober. Who knew what she’d be like drunk.

I turned back to Sam. It had been strange, sitting with him. I didn’t really know what to say. The upside was that I was unlikely to say anything worse than I already had. He seemed to take up half the booth himself. It was still strange to see him in the flesh. I wondered if I’d ever get used to it. 

“So,” I tried to think of something to say. “What’s the deal with the hair?” I regretted it as soon as I asked. 

“What?” he asked, laughing slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t get it.” I tilted my head while looking at him. He was still attractive, but the hair was long. I just always wondered. “It’s almost as long as mine. I mean, I get that while hunting you probably stopped caring about it, but sometimes it looks greasy. And untamed.” My eyes widened and I pressed my lips together. “Sorry.” Why couldn’t I just shut up?

“No, no, it’s okay.” He had a smile on his face so he couldn’t have been that offended. Still hadn’t been as bad as what I said before. He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I never really thought about it. I did stop caring, more important things to worry about and all.” Relieved that he wasn’t taking it personally, I smiled back. 

“I get that. It’s just…” I felt myself smirk and tried to hold back. “You know, there are fan pages back home just on the evolution of your hair.” He stared at me and I felt myself blush under the scrutiny. I tried not to laugh at his widening eyes. “It’s a little scary.”

He laughed and it somehow made him more attractive. Maybe it was the fact he was laughing, a little more carefree than I had seen him so far. It was still surreal to see him so close, so real. 

Something suddenly fell into the booth, grabbing me by the shoulders. I stiffened before I realized it was Kelly.

“How’d the game go?” My voice was slightly high pitched, my heart was still beating fast from the surprise.

“Great!” She grinned at me. “I lost, but not as terribly as expected. We’re going to play again. Just wanted to check on you.”

I smiled, a real one, once again grateful that she was there. It was the little things like this that I had missed the most. We looked out for each other. “I’m okay.”

“Good. Maybe we can dance later. Jane’s already at it, or at least her version of dancing,” she pointed over her shoulder and I looked. Jane was on the dance floor. Her movements were jagged but weirdly fluid. It almost looked like she was going to start fighting...or stripping. I could see Dean leaning against the pool table, head tilted and eyebrow raised as he watched her. 

“Maybe,” I said, though I already knew it was a lie. I was stressed out enough sitting in a booth. I couldn’t imagine dancing like nothing was wrong. 

“Are you having fun?” She looked at me, oddly serious. There was something in her expression I couldn’t place as she looked me over. 

“Yeah,” I said. “Go play pool. Show him your moves.” 

She waggled her eyebrows up and down. “Oh, I got moves.” I couldn’t stop the snort of laughter. She grinned at me before looking over at Sam. “Make sure she has fun!”

He raised his hands up and nodded. She hugged me tightly before she got up and went back to the pool table. I looked back at Sam. He was laughing slightly. I raised an eyebrow in question.

“It’s sweet,” he said. “She’s looking out for you.”

“Yeah,” I looked down at my drink. “We always had each other’s back.” I cleared my throat, unwilling to get into that mess of emotions. I took a sip of the cranberry juice before I looked back at him. “So, you went to Stanford, right? What was that like?”  
  


* * *

  
Sam seemed fascinated with my thesis, despite the fact I never finished it, and choice of field. 

“How did you choose that?” he asked.

“Well, I did my bachelor's degree majoring in English and minoring in classical studies. The mix of history, myths and English lit led to an exploration into fairy tales and how they grew from cautionary tales to help children survive the time period to the stories we love today. Granted, here there’s a lot more truth to the caution, but I thought it was fascinating that a lot of the themes and mythology were present across the world.”

That expanded into a whole other conversation on myths and legends and their connection to popular fairy tales. I had a feeling Kelly would berate me for talking shop while at a bar with a tall, extremely built and attractive man, but it was the most interesting conversation I had had in a long time. No one was really interested in talking about this outside of my program, even back home.

Sam was leaning in, adding tales about things he and his brother had hunted that related to the stories and we argued over whether or not any of the stories held any truth to them. It was fascinating. Especially since I was learning things the show never covered. 

We were arguing over the twelve tasks of Hercules, and whether or not there was any truth to them when Dean and Kelly came back to the table. 

“You two look like you’re getting along!” Dean slid into the booth beside me. I looked over to see Sam moving over so Kelly could join him. “What are you two talking about?” 

“The conformity of fairy tales as they adapt to modern society, which he is completely wrong about,” I pointed with my finger to emphasize my statement.

“I am not,” Sam said. “You have to consider the implications of--”

“Woah woah woah,” Dean cut him off. “Argue your nerd out when I’m not here.” He made a face, “why are you talking about fairy tales at a bar? Makes no sense.” He looked over at me and then shrugged. “Maybe some sense.” I tried not to roll my eyes as I heard Kelly giggle. “So,” Dean moved his arm to rest on the back of the booth behind me and grinned. “Kelly told me.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled. It looked like he was trying to be smooth, but too smooth. 

I glanced over at Kelly. She looked far too amused. Sam did not. “Told you what?” I asked hesitantly. 

“What you were like back home,” his smile turned into a grin. “That you were my fan.” I was going to have to kill her. This time I didn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“Did she also tell you that that was only up to season three? That I moved on to a more attractive and sensible brother?” 

Dean blinked and looked over. His brow furrowed and I stopped him before he motioned to Sam.

“Adam.” I tried not to smile. 

He rolled his eyes, able to tell that I was teasing. He moved his arm back to his own side. “Ha ha.” He turned to Kelly, “wait, you never told me whose ‘team’ you were on.”

I looked over and smiled widely, leaning slightly into the table. “Yeah, Kels. Who did you like again?” Her eyes widened and her face started to flush. “It was John, right?”

“What?” both the boys exclaimed. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at their expressions. 

“That’s just gross,” Dean said. 

Kelly shrugged. “Maybe I’m an equal opportunity Winchester fan. John included.” The boys made another face. 

“How did that work?” Sam asked. “Like, what was different between the books and...your show.”

“Never read the books,” I shrugged. “Can’t really give you an idea.” 

“Are the fans...like Becky?” Dean asked. “Or are they like you?”

Kelly leaned forward. “Who’s to say we’re not like Becky?” She raised her eyebrows up and down. Sam shifted over slightly away from her. I snorted at her expression. “Relax,” she said, laughing slightly. “There were some, sure. It wasn’t a hugely popular show, but you tell a story of bravery and fighting evil and make the main cast super hot guys, you’re going to draw in the...intense.” That was putting it politely. “We liked the show, but it wasn’t like...obsessive. It was…” Kelly trailed off. 

“It was a good story,” I said. I winced as I saw their expressions. “Sorry, I just mean, it was about family as much as it was about monsters. It was a good escape.” 

“Good visuals too,” Kelly winked before she laughed. “It doesn’t matter, does it? It wasn’t real and now…”

“You are,” I frowned, thinking about it. “We are?” The logistics of parallel universes were complicated. 

“Regardless,” Kelly said, cutting off my train of thought, “this is meant for fun. No more end of the world talk, or responsibilities or whatever.”

“Here, here,” Dean said. He raised his glass towards her and she cheered him back. “Let’s talk about something fun. We already know Michelle has good taste in music,” I nodded in thanks, though I was sure he would take that back if he knew everything I listened to. “What do you like?” 

The night ended smoothly and better than I expected. There were no demons, no monsters. The only thing that jumped at us was Jane off the dancefloor when it was time to leave. All in all, it was a good time and I should have been happy about it. It just didn’t feel right to do so.   
  


* * *

  
The next day Kelly and I were outside, listening to Jane as she explained the most sensitive areas of the body and how we could cause the most damage to someone. It was a little intense as she explained where to cut someone to make them bleed out and the fastest way to break certain bones, but it was also interesting. 

“You really think that’ll work?” 

Kelly and I both turned to see Dean and Sam coming out the back porch. They stopped behind us. Dean took a swig of his beer. 

Jane tilted her head. “Shall I show you?”

Dean scoffed. “I’m not going to fight you.”

“You know you will lose,” Jane nodded and looked back at Kelly and I. “One must know when to retreat if you cannot defeat your foe.” 

“Defeat?” Dean sounded incredulous. I looked back to see him look at Sam who shrugged in response. 

“You will not win,” Jane said. 

“Alright, Sammy, hold this.” Dean handed the bottle to Sam who took it. “We’ll see who’ll win.”

“Dean, wait. Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“It’ll be fine.” Dean walked up and faced Jane. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll go easy on you.”

“I won’t.” Jane struck fast. She moved forward and hit with one hand. Dean was on the ground. 

“Holy shit!” Kelly stood up.

“Dean!” Sam ran forward. Jane twisted, striking again. This time she moved one of her legs after she hit him and Sam crumpled forward. My jaw dropped. 

“As I said, you will not win.” Jane stepped back and we all watched as the men slowly got up. 

“Okay,” Dean sounded a little strained. “Won’t go easy on you.” He hit Sam in the chest. “Help your brother out.” Sam shot him a look. 

“You are welcome to try. I have faced armies with my tribe. At once you both shall fail.” Jane nodded, welcoming them closer. The boys looked at each other. Dean tilted his head and Sam sighed. Both of them turned towards Jane. 

Jane struck first. She moved quickly between them. She was faster than they were and it looked like she hit hard. It was almost hard to keep up with. Her movements were fluid and short. She kicked Dean on the inside of his thigh and hit Sam in the stomach. As Dean bent over, Jane wrapped an arm around Sam’s neck and used Dean for leverage, launching herself off of him with her feet. She kicked him in the face as she did, then used her motion and body weight to pull Sam down backwards. 

“Holy shit,” Kelly said again. “Is she an action movie star?”

“Looks like. I didn’t think that was possible in real life,” I said, not moving my eyes from the fight. 

Jane moved back, allowing the boys some space. “You will not want to continue.”

“Yup,” Dean waved a hand from where he was bent over. “Okay, I believe you.” He made a face like he was trying to catch his breath. “Alright there, Sammy?” Sam groaned in response. 

Jane nodded and turned towards us. She looked like she had barely broken a sweat. “This is what you will be capable of when we are finished.”

I looked at Kelly, who looked back at me. There was no chance in hell now we’d say no to her. She was officially scary. 

“Good,” Jane said, a pleased look in her eyes. “Now you will learn to fall.” 

**[tbc]**


	7. Confirmations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another vessel appears. This time alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and following or favouriting this. I hope you enjoy it. As always, please comment and let me know what you think. Thanks!

_ “People always say   
Life is full of choices.   
No one ever mentions fear”   
Journey to the Past - Anastasia (1997) _

We were both bruised but somehow not broken when we stumbled into the house. 

“I think I’m dead,” Kelly groaned. The door closed behind us and I leaned against it. 

“You’re not supposed to feel pain when you’re dead…” I looked at her, “right?” 

“Yeah,” she said. “No pain. No walls either.” She headed for the stairs. “I think I kind of miss it now.” I pushed myself off of the door and went to follow. 

“Hey,” Sam stepped into the doorway from the kitchen. “Something’s come up.” 

Kelly paused partway up the stairs. “What?”

“It’s…” he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back. “Castiel was here. He brought another one. In the panic room.” 

“So?” I asked. 

“We want you to look, just see if you recognize them.” I wanted to say no. I wanted to ignore it. I knew what he was demanding, what could be waiting for us there. Sam looked sad like he knew exactly what he was asking us to face and forced a smile.

“Ugh, fine,” Kelly said. “We’ll prove you wrong and then I will go upstairs and sleep for the next week.” 

We stumbled on slowly downstairs. It hurt to move. It was going to hurt more tomorrow. Kelly’s idea of sleeping into next week sounded good. I paused outside the iron door. I didn’t really want to look in. This could be a confirmation of the gatekeeper possibility. If it was true, then my arrival here was purposeful and everything that had happened was meant to.

“Come on,” Kelly said softly. “Let’s get this over with.” 

I took a deep breath. I opened the view slot and looked in. A man was pacing. He looked familiar in his brown suit.

“Hello?” he called out. “Is anyone there?” 

It clicked. I turned to her. “Oh my god. It’s Giles!” I ducked under the view slot as if that would protect me. 

She peered in before looking at me. “Fuck. It’s Giles.” So much for proving them wrong. 

* * *

It wasn’t that we didn’t like Giles. He had been a favoured character when we went through our Buffy phase. But seeing him in that room confirmed everything that the others were saying. We were likely confirmed Gatekeepers. 

“What if...” I stopped myself. I wanted to be wrong. I desperately wanted to be wrong because if they were wrong about the gatekeepers, they were wrong about everything else. 

“Excuse me, but I can hear you.” His voice called out from the room. The British accent was obvious. Kelly closed her eyes and swore again. There was no doubt. 

I looked at her. “What do we do?” I whispered. She shrugged. I looked back through the view slot. “Hello?”

“Yes, hello. Could you please tell me where I am and why I am locked in this room?”

“Um…” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to explain it. Kelly walked away without a word. I watched her go back upstairs. 

“Miss?” Giles called out again. 

“Hold on!” I ran after Kelly, ignoring the pain in my body as I went up the stairs. I caught sight of her walking through the front door and closing it after her. Dean called Kelly’s name and he stepped into the hallway as I got closer. I looked into the library. Bobby and Sam were staring at me. I picked up my pace.

“I got this,” I said to Dean as I passed him. He grabbed my arm, stopping me. “What?”

“Who is it?” he asked, glancing at me before he looked back at the door. “She okay?”

“It’s Giles. An...academic. I don’t know. Let go.” I waited until he did before I went out the front door. He didn’t follow. 

* * *

Kelly was sitting on the front steps. 

“Kels?” I sat down next to her and she jumped. “You okay?” 

“You know, I thought that when I got here, that when I was...real again, I don’t know, maybe I was moving on or something. Like reincarnation without the starting over again.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I was excited, I mean, come on, Winchesters. But...what’s the point?” 

I sighed. I leaned forward and put my arms on my knees, curling up slightly. “I don’t know.” I kind of hoped she didn’t cry. I wasn’t good with emotions and I hadn’t had to deal with anyone outside of me crying since Kelly’s funeral.

“What’s the fucking point of being alive again? At what fucking cost? Our families...our world.” I leaned against her. I didn’t really have anything to say. “And Gatekeepers? If I had known that, I would have avoided pop culture! I would have been a Mormon!”

I snorted. “No you wouldn’t,” I said. “You love celebrity gossip.” 

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I do.” 

“I don’t know what’s happening,” my voice was soft. “Everything went wrong when you died. Coming here...I was trying to get my life back. I was applying for stupid jobs just to give myself something to do, get out of the house...not like this though.” 

“Do you think it’s true? That we’re Gatekeepers.” 

The word settled heavily in my stomach. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be.” 

“Me either. Nothing good comes from being important.”

I looked at Kelly and sighed. “What are we going to do?” 

“Survive, I guess. Live as well as we can. Maybe being essential means we can’t die. That’d be alright.” Kelly said, smiling slightly at me. “We’re not alone at least.” 

“Yeah. I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Me too.” Kelly ran a hand through her hair and looked out at the sky. “I don’t want to go in. I don’t actually want to deal with it, see their stupid faces.” Neither did I. Kelly’s expression was heartbreaking though. She didn’t seem to realize she was making it. 

“I got it,” I said it before I could stop myself. “My iPod is charged if you want music. It’s upstairs. I’ll...I’ll deal with Giles.”

She looked up at me in surprise. “Really?” I smiled. Despite all my fears about this confirmation, I could deal with it for now if it would give her a bit of peace. What else were friends for?

She smiled softly. “Thanks.” I stayed out there while she went inside.

I just needed a minute. I closed my eyes tightly and buried my head in my hands. I didn’t want to deal with Giles. I wanted to go home. I wanted to crawl into bed and have my mother ask me if I was okay. I didn’t want to face something that gave proof to Becky’s words...one where she said the old worlds were destroyed. 

I shoved the thought of home to the back of my mind and stood up. I’d end up crying more than I already did. I just needed a distraction. I dug my fingers into my palms and tried to think of a song. Something to take my mind off of it all. When I headed inside, I was humming Spice Girls.   
  


* * *

When I walked back to the library, they all looked up at me.

“Is everything alright?” Sam asked. He looked concerned. 

“Nope,” I forced a smile and shrugged. There wasn’t anything that could be done about it for now. “Where’s Giles?”

“Downstairs.” I looked at Dean as he spoke. He raised his eyebrows at me. “We weren’t going to let him out just ‘cause you say he’s cool. We need more info.”

“Okay, um.” I sat down on the couch. I was tired and my body hurt. I needed something to ground me. “Rupert Giles, from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was Buffy’s watcher.”

“Wait, hold on. Buffy?” Dean looked almost incredulous. 

“You know Buffy?” I asked. Sam and Bobby both looked at Dean with a mix of confusion and interest. 

“Yeah, chick was hot.” Dean shrugged. “Badass too.” 

I smiled slightly. “Okay, so you know he deals with helping her stop apocalypses and demons and vampires and what not. Can I go get him?” I waited until one of them nodded before I stood up. Sam was ripping in on Dean knowing the show. I stopped in the doorway and looked back. “Could...could one of you come with? I don’t really want to do this...alone.”

“Yeah,” Sam got up quickly. “I will.” 

I smiled at him, thankful that I was going into this on my own. “Thanks.” 

We walked to the basement in silence. It only lasted until we got close to the door. I stopped walking. I really didn’t want to do this. It felt...it felt like if I opened this door, it would all be real and I couldn’t just think it was stupid anymore.

“You okay?” Sam asked from behind me. 

“No, not really.” I gave a small laugh. I felt like crying. I wanted to run out of the basement. I thought of Kelly and moved forwards. “Let’s open the door.”

Sam opened it and tensed. A quick glance told me that his hand was near his gun. The man in the room turned as the door opened.

“Hi,” I gave a small wave. “I’m sorry about keeping you in here so long, it was a precaution. I’m Michelle and this is Sam.”

“Pleasure, I’m sure.” He watched us warily. “Why have you kidnapped me? I don’t understand…”

“We’ll explain everything. Trust us, we didn’t intend on kidnapping you. Let’s just...go upstairs. It’s a bit more comfortable than here.” I ignored how Sam watched Giles closely as he came towards us. I was about to walk upstairs when Sam touched my arm. 

“Wait,” he said. He looked at Giles. “You first. Precaution.” He looked back at me and I nodded. Couldn’t be too careful. 

I shrugged apologetically at Giles who sighed.

“Of course.” He walked ahead of us as I pointed the way. I wondered if he felt like I did when Sam got us out of the room.   
  


* * *

I ushered him to the library. 

“You can sit down if you want,” I motioned to the couch or the empty chair. He shook his head and looked around the room curiously. “You might want to,” I said. “This...it isn’t going to be easy to hear.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Where am I?” 

I felt like pacing. No one else had spoken and I hated the fact that I had to take control. They were all just watching. “South Dakota?” 

“South-?” he looked at me alarmed. “How did I get here?” 

“Good question. I’ll try to explain. You’re going to have to forgive me if any of this is confusing. I’ve never done this before.” I tried to figure out how to explain it. How do you tell someone they’re in a parallel universe? One that’s just as bad as the one they came from. Maybe it would be easier with Giles because of where he was from. “Look, you know about parallel universes, right?” I waited for his nod. “That’s sort of what this is. Only more complicated. I don’t know. It’s all still new to me. There’s an apocalypse going on here, just not like the ones you’re used to. This is more...biblical? Lucifer was set free from his cage and both him and the angels want to battle it out which would destroy the planet. So not a fan.” I watched his face change into a more severe expression. I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself for the next part. “There are, or were, consequences to the apocalypse.” I didn’t look at either Winchester. 

“In order to fight, Lucifer and Michael need vessels. The ideal ones are the brothers here.” I motioned to them. “But, and I don’t know why, there are tears, rips appearing in the worlds, and other worthy vessels from other worlds are being brought here. Maybe as a fail-safe? That’s a thing, right?” I looked over at Jane who stared back at me. She was the wrong person to choose for confirmation. “The reason you’re here is because, I think, you're a vessel. We’re trying to, I don't know, make sure they don’t get any vessels because the wear and tear on the bodies they use is not pleasant. We don’t want the world to end and making sure they don’t get their vessels is pretty much the only plan we got at the moment, right?” This time I looked towards the boys and Sam nodded. I finally took a breath and waited for Giles to process the ramble. I really didn’t have a plan before I started talking. 

“I see.” He took off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. It was such a Giles move, it made me smile slightly. “And have you found any sources or prophecies about these vessels entering? Or how to return them?” 

I looked to the ground. I couldn’t answer this. 

“Everything we know has come from the angels themselves or the book of Revelations,” Sam spoke up. “As for returning...you can’t. At least, we don’t think you can.” 

“What?” Giles suddenly looked dangerous and remembering what he was like when he was younger, I stepped back. I was sure that Dean or Sam could take him, but we didn’t need a fight to break out. 

“Apparently when a vessel comes through, the rips close and…” I couldn’t say it.

“The old world dies,” Dean said, quoting Becky. Giles sat down in the chair behind him and I tried to breathe through the tightness in my throat. 

“And how-how do you know this?” Giles asked. 

“There’s a prophet,” I said, crossing my arms as he looked at me. 

“And this prophet, you...you trust his reliability?” 

“Trust us,” Dean said, leaning back on the desk. “He’s the real deal.” 

“And who are you?” Giles snapped. “She’s mentioned you as the ideal vessels, but names would be helpful.”

“I’m Sam Winchester, that’s my brother Dean. The man behind the desk is Bobby Singer.”

“And I can presume that from what I’ve heard, this is your world?” Giles waited until Sam nodded and looked back at me. “Michelle is it? What is your role in this?” 

“Um, as displaced as you, really…” I didn’t know what to say.

“She’s a vessel and one of the Gatekeepers.” I smiled at Sam for speaking up. I wasn’t sure if the two could go together or if a person could only be one or the other. 

Giles looked confused. “A Gatekeeper? Are you one of the ones responsible for this then? For my arrival?” 

“What? No!” I raised my hands as quickly as I said it. “I just found out about the whole Gatekeeper thing, recently at least. I don’t...I don’t belong here either. I wouldn’t,” I swallowed. “I wouldn’t force this on anyone.” The room fell silent. 

“Michelle?” I looked over at Jane. “Are you well?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” I looked at Giles. “That’s Jane...we’re not entirely sure what type of world she comes from or why she’s here. She doesn’t seem to be a vessel. She’s adamant that Kelly, she’s another vessel, and I train to be able to protect ourselves though.” I looked around the room. “It’s a good thing. Hard, but this world is dangerous. You should ask them about it,” I motioned to the brothers. “They know more than I do. Now, if there’s no more questions, I am very bruised and would like to go lie down.”

The brothers ushered me out and I headed upstairs slowly. I did it. I managed to get through it without crying, which felt like a win. I fell onto the bed next to Kelly who groaned and shoved me. I caught myself before I fell off but didn’t retaliate. Exhaustion had caught up and I fell asleep fast. 

**[tbc]**


	8. Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what the chapter title says. Possession. 
> 
> Warning: mentions and details of violence against others, mentions of starvation, thoughts of dying and anger issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter in a way that it was clear who was speaking caused me problems. I think I finally managed it this time, but if it's confusing, please tell me so I can fix it.

_ “Everything you say to me  
_ _ Takes me one step closer to the edge  
_ _ And I'm about to break  
_ _I need a little room to breathe”_

_\- One Step Closer by Linkin Park_

I woke up and sat up instantly. My heart was pounding and I was breathing as if I just got back from running. The dream faded and I couldn’t remember what it was about, but it felt wrong, like something was lingering. I shifted and regretted it instantly. Training with Jane was difficult. It had been a few days since she decided we needed to learn to fall and Giles had shown up. She had not been kidding when she said it would get more intense. As she had been trying to teach us, she decided we were not limber or strong enough. We moved into stretching and weight training while continuing to learn how to properly fall.

I fell back on the bed. Kelly hadn’t moved, sleeping as deeply as ever. The sky was still dark. Despite my fears, I didn’t want to move. I was still tired and everything hurt. I closed my eyes. I just needed a few more minutes. 

I woke up with a headache. I felt gross and my muscles were sore from training. Kelly threw a towel at me and told me to shower when I finally got on my feet. I prayed the hot water would wake me and help the pain. Something had to work. 

I was washing my hair when I thought I saw something behind the curtain.

“Hello?” I called out. My heart started pounding as my anxiety ramped up. I took a deep breath. No one entered the bathroom when someone was in it and I was still at Bobby’s. Nothing was safer than Bobby’s. The curtain moved as if with a breeze. The window was closed. I wiped at my eyes again as shampoo dripped into them. The curtain moved. Before I could react, black smoke swarmed me. I blacked out as I fell. 

When I came to, I was staring at my own reflection. Panic set in fast. How did I get here? I tried to look around but I didn’t move. My head turned slightly to the left and then to the right. My eyes never left my reflection. Something wasn’t right. I tried to frown, to open my mouth, to do something. My eyebrows didn’t move. I stared at my reflection closely, willing it to just even blink. It took a few seconds before it did. Something was very  _ very _ wrong. 

I watched as my reflection smiled and my lips twisted into a smirk. Cold fear flooded me and set in. My mouth opened.

“Hello, Michelle.” It was my voice but it wasn’t me. “Glad you're finally awake. I was wondering if we’d ever get to talk.”

_ I don’t understand... _ I tried to say but my lips just grinned wider. I had no control. Fuck. There was only one reason in this world why someone would lose control of their own body like this.  _ Fuck. _

“There you go, I knew you were smart,” the thing said. “Miss me?” It laughed. There was only one demon that would be able to say that to me and it was the reason I ran from Gainesboro. “We never did get to finish our conversation.” My body leaned in closer to the mirror and started making a wide variety of expressions. None matched the fear and loathing I had for this thing. “Oh, is this better?” My face moved in a mock expression of horror and one of my hands rose to cover my mouth. I felt my body vibrate with laughter. It wasn’t  _ mine _ though. 

_ Get out! _ I snarled and tried to force her out of my mind. It didn’t work. If it was that easy, others would have managed it before. I had to gain control. Her laughter echoed in my head. 

“Oh that’s not nice,  _ Mish, _ ” my voice was hard. “After all the trouble I went through to find you. They think you did it,” she whispered. “The nice girl who came and took advantage of kind, good people before she killed them. Killed the ones who saved her.” She laughed again.

_ Stop! Shut up! _

“Actually, I won’t. I owe you, Mish, for that salt. And this?” She reached for the anti possession necklace. I didn't want to ruin the leather in the shower. I thought I was safe. “That’s just rude.” She brushed it into the garbage next to the sink. 

Before I could react, I was thrown into a memory. I was in the diner in Gainesboro, only it wasn’t me. It was her. I felt myself, felt her laugh as she pressed Edgar’s face into the stove. I watched as he screamed while the flesh burned and sizzled. The smell was surrounding me and the memory breathed in deeply before it focused on the past me. 

_ Stop! _ I tried to scream.  _ STOP! _ I was pulled out of the memory, staring back into the mirror as she dried my hair. I didn’t know that was possible, that they could do that to those trapped.

“What? Don’t like it? I was having fun, but you don’t do that, do you? You keep everything locked up nice and tight. All those fun urges and emotions.”

_ You don’t know what you’re talking about. Get out of me. _

“Oh no, I’m having way too much fun already. I knew you were different, but another world? That’s so...intriguing. I’m inside you, Michelle. I know everything. Like how you’re repressing this? Repressing me?” 

I was thrown back into another memory. I felt blood run down her hands as she sliced into Jake’s neck while he stared at me in confusion. The girl was in the back. I followed her. The cook tried to stop me. I pushed his face into the stove as bones began to crack. He told her to run. I couldn’t have that happen. I dropped him, stepped on his neck. I felt the bones break under my foot. Her foot. I leaned over the girl as she fell, soaking up the fear as my eyes showed the truth. Then everything burned. When I could see again, she was gone and someone was calling from the front. I forced tears. I’d find her again. 

I was brought back out of the memory. We were in my room. 

_ You bitch. _

“I thought you didn’t swear,” my voice was light and taunting. It sounded strange. “Mommy and daddy will be so upset, but then again, they can’t be anymore, can they?” She laughed and I could still smell the burning flesh. 

_ I’ll make an exception for you. _

I felt my mouth twist into a smile. “Oh good. Wouldn’t want things to be boring. Tell me, what happened after, Mish? After you ran from me?” 

_ Fuck you. _

“Ooh, kinky. I am you now after all.” She paused in her search through my clothes. “What’s wrong? Don’t remember? Let me help.”

I was walking on the side of the road. My stomach was tight with hunger and I felt nauseous. I hadn’t eaten in days. I ignored it. I needed to get away, far from Gainesboro. A car slowed next to me. 

“Need a ride sugar?”

“No thanks,” I replied quickly. “I’m good walking.” I narrowed my eyes at the man in the car and watched him carefully until he drove off. I moved off the road, closer into the ditch and grass. I didn’t need anyone coming back to look for me, deciding I was easy prey. 

I was dressed when I was pulled out of the memory. 

“You walked for days. Hungry, alone and certain you were going to die. You almost did. Now, look at you. A Gatekeeper and with the Winchesters!” I felt her amusement as she headed to the door. “I’m ready to play. Are the others as fun as you?”

_ If you touch any of them, I will kill you. I won’t stop until I find a way.  _

“And? You know what possession means. You won’t get out.”

_ They’ll notice. _

“No, they won’t. They don’t know you. The only one who does is absorbed with being alive. She’s barely noticed there’s more wrong with you than normal. By the time she does, you’re pouring bleach down her throat. Oh, I like that. Now hush,” she whispered. 

_ If you touch a hair on their heads, I will boil you in holy water. _

“Now you’re being creative. I like it.” 

_ Fuck you. If I have control for even a second, I’ll swallow salt. _

“Michelle?” My body turned at the voice. Jane was staring at me with her head tilted and her eyes narrowed. 

“Yeah? What’s up?” The demon answered in my voice. I hated it. 

_ Jane! _ I tried screaming.  _ You’re a fucking amazon! It’s not me! IT’S NOT ME! _ I felt the demon laugh but my face didn’t change. 

“Training. Ten minutes.” Jane turned and left without another word. The demon laughed harder as we watched her go. I tried to struggle and fight harder. Nothing changed. 

_ “I told you, they won’t know until it’s too late.”  _ Her voice, light and feminine, echoed in my head. We looked back to where Jane stood.  _ “I like her. Maybe when I’m done with your friend I’ll take her for a spin. Then I can watch your face as I pour cement down your throat. Maybe I’ll pull out your teeth, one by one. You always did have a fear of dentists, didn’t you?”  _

_ Kelly will notice. She’ll notice and she’ll tell the brothers and I’ll be free. _

_ “Oh Mish, _ ” she smiled,  _ “It’ll be too late. She’ll be dead and they’ll never find either of us. _ ”

_ That won’t happen. You’ll slip up and end up dead! Even if they have to shoot me. _

She didn’t respond. Instead, she forced memories of my nieces, of my family. I watched silently. There were reasons I held onto my anger tightly for years. She knew this now and I hated it. I hated her. 

“Michelle?” 

We turned to see Giles coming out of the kitchen. “Yeah?” She asked. She was already making a mistake. She was too happy. 

“I have a few questions if you don’t mind. About your arrival.” 

“Of course.” My lips turned up in a smile. 

_ Fuck! Come on Giles! You should know about possession! You lived on a fucking Hellmouth! _ She laughed around me. 

“Ah, good. Um, follow me.” He headed into the library and she followed like a good puppy. Kelly and Sam were already in there, both looking at something on Sam’s laptop. Kelly laughed. My heart clenched as she smiled when she looked at me. I wouldn’t let this thing hurt her. 

“Hey Kels!” my voice rang out and I felt my face grin. 

“You seem happy,” Kelly looked at us carefully. “What’s up?”

_ YES! I knew it! She knows! She knows and you’re going to die screaming! _

“Not much,” I felt myself shrug. “I just figured that it was time to accept this. Look on the bright side, y’know? After all, we’re here together.” 

“Yeah,” Kelly smiled. “That’s true.” 

The demon laughed internally. I stared at my best friend in shock. 

_ How can you not fucking now? CAN’T YOU TELL? We’re best friends! _

_ “I told you,”  _ the demon whispered to me playfully. Her voice felt like it vibrated through my skull. 

_ Fuck you! Shut the fuck up! The brothers will know! I don’t care if it ends in my fucking death, as long as I take you down with me.  _

“ _ Looking forward to your death already? It’s going to be nice and slow.” _

_ The only thing that’s going to be dragged out is you from my body. _

_ “Don’t worry, we’ll have some fun before I kill you.” _ She looked over at Sam. “ _ He may be human, but you can’t deny you’ve thought about him touching you. By the time I’m through, he’ll have fucked us against a wall. Can’t kill him, but we can play. Maybe with his brother too.” _

“Michelle?”

We looked up at Giles across the room. “If you could join me over here, we can get started.”

“Sure,” she grinned at Kelly and Sam before walking across the room until she stopped suddenly. It felt like we hit a wall. “What?”

_ Look up asshole. _

She did and we both stared at the Devil’s Trap on the ceiling. 

“Fuck!” 

I laughed.  _ I told you. You won’t get out of this one. _

“You bitch! You knew!”

_ Paranoia gets you everywhere. I thought you knew everything I knew? _

“What?” Kelly's voice pulled our attention outwards. “You swear now? Who knew what?” I saw Sam look up at the ceiling and stand up. 

“Oh, you already got her.” The demon whirled around to face Dean who stood in the doorway just in front of Jane. Jane was watching us carefully. 

_ “She knew. I will strip the flesh off of her slowly when I get out of this.” _

_ No, you won't. You won’t touch any of them.  _

“Who are you?” We turned back to Sam. “How did you get in her?” 

She twisted my lips into a grin. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag, isn’t it? I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed. I was going to have so much fun. Everyone here is so shiny and new…well, not you,” she looked at the Winchesters. “You’re all broken.”

_ Stop fucking talking to her and get her out!  _ I screamed at them. 

“This is a demon?” We looked at Jane who spoke. She stepped forwards. “I will obtain information.” 

We stepped back. “Now now, play nice. Michelle’s still in here and she feels _ everything _ .”

“Michelle is an alpha of her world and a Gatekeeper in this one. She will understand.” Jane was stopped from coming closer by Dean. 

We turned to face Kelly. “Kels, you wouldn’t let her hurt me, would you?”

“You’re not Michelle.” Kelly was standing now. I couldn’t place the expression on her face. 

“No, I’m not.” I felt the grin widen. “But she’s in here and she heard everything. She’s been awake, crying for help. You never knew, did you? In fact, didn’t you say you liked this?”

“Get rid of it.” Kelly’s voice was hard. “Now.”

Sam glanced down at her in concern but started speaking familiar Latin. We screamed. It felt like she dug her claws in and was tearing up my insides as she was being ripped out. 

“It won’t fix it!” she screamed.

Sam stopped. “Fix what?”

We took deep breaths. “Michelle.” The demon said, laughing a bit. 

_ Shut up. _

“You have no idea the mind this girl has. Kelly knows, but she forgets. It’s been so long and Michelle’s so good at hiding. Right?” She turned so we were both looking at Kelly. 

_ Stop fucking saying anything. They don’t need to know.  _

We looked back at Sam. “Michelle’s filled with all kinds of hate and anger and violence. You should hear her sometimes. She’s very entertaining. Gave me all sorts of ideas.” 

“Now Sam,” Kelly said. 

“Her thoughts go on and on,” the demon continued. “She’s insane and she doesn’t even know it. Whoops, guess she does now.” She giggled with my voice. “It didn’t help when her best friend died, or when she spent days alone when she first arrived. She almost starved to death. She never told you that, did she? Should have seen her when the _angel_ ,” she spat, “found her. Never told you how she repeated things and talked out loud even when no one was around because if she was silent, she’d think and with her mind…”

_ FUCK YOU! _ I had anger issues and my own coping mechanisms for my life. I didn’t need her commentary. I survived. That was the point. 

Sam started speaking again. We both screamed and my sight blacked out as I fell. I lay on the ground for a moment, flexing my fingers to make sure it was me. 

“Mish?” Someone touched my shoulder. I shoved them off and ran. 

No one stopped me. I was barely aware of where I was going until I collapsed on the floor of the iron room. I screamed. My voice cracked and my throat felt raw but I screamed. They’d hear me now. I didn’t stop until I started to cry. My body shook with sobs and the relief of that alone was incomparable. 

She forced me to face things that I had seen or done. She forced me to face what I felt. I thought I was going to die alone, cold and starved in that barn. I wanted to kill her. To drown her in holy water like I promised. She was gone though and all that was left was facing their reactions and their fear. 

Someone knelt next to me. A familiar necklace came into my eyesight. 

“It’ll protect you,” Sam’s voice said softly. “From possession.” I grabbed it and put it on. At this point, I was willing to sear it into my skin to keep this from ever happening again. He sat down and didn’t say anything. I was grateful for the silence. The images of Edgar and Jake’s deaths were seared into me. I had memories of watching them die and now of killing them. I couldn’t stop seeing it and I was tempted to just push my hands against my eyes until they stopped. 

“Michelle?”

I jolted at the noise before I realized it was Sam. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding and I was on the verge of another panic attack. I took a deep breath. I tried to tell him that I was okay, that he didn’t need to worry or stay, but I started to cry again. He knew everything now. They all did. I pulled myself in tighter and tried to force the images away. I felt Sam put an arm around me as if he was going to pull me closer before he settled on rubbing my back. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that, but Sam never left. 

Once I got a hold of myself and felt like I could talk without screaming, I moved. My muscles protested as I straightened my legs. I still sat next to Sam. He was silent. I wiped at my face with the collar of my shirt. I must have looked like a mess.

“Why are you still here?” It came out more snappish than I intended. While I was angry, it wasn't at him. I sighed. “Sorry, I just...I’m surprised you’re still sitting here.”

“Yeah, well, I thought you might want someone to talk to.” He shrugged and I snorted. He looked at me confused. 

“Is talking going to be you telling me that everything’s okay? That I’ll get over being possessed and then question me about what she said?”

He looked at me sadly. “You won't forget. It doesn’t go away.”

“That’s encouraging, thanks.” I deadpanned.

“It's the truth.”

We sat in silence before I couldn’t take it. I needed to fill it with something, even if I didn’t want to talk about it. “Alright, ask me.” 

“Ask you what?”

“I don’t know, whatever you want to ask. You have that look on your face. Just get it over with.”

“Well…” he looked flustered which made me smile slightly. He sighed and ran a hand over his hair. “Is it true? What the demon said?”

I stared at the wall across from us. “Yeah.” I didn’t explain it further. I didn’t know how. 

“How do you...how do you hide it? I never would have known.” 

I sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t act on it. Usually, it’s just intrusive thoughts. I generally don’t really mean it or want to act on it. I just think it. If people knew what I really thought at times, I probably would have been locked away. I would have never seen my nieces again.” I tried not to think of the irony that I wasn’t going to see them any time soon at this rate. “I couldn’t have that. I just...I put my energy into other things.” I thought about it carefully. “I like to bake bread when I’m really upset. The actions of putting ingredients together and having to pound it out, it’s like therapy. I haven’t been able to do that for a while, having done  _ any _ baking in a long time.” I smiled softly to myself before I turned to look at him. “Sam, it’s easy to be angry. It grows and grows and can overwhelm you. Before you know it, you’ve hurt someone or something and you thought you’d feel better but you just feel worse. That’s why I keep it close to me, but not so much that it suffocates me. If you do that, you’re basically drowning yourself and setting yourself up for disaster. It’s not easy, and you got to have a lot of control, but I’d rather do that than lash out at someone else.” 

I smiled at him as he stared at me, finally feeling some semblance of normality. I used his shoulder for leverage as I stood up. I clutched the necklace I wore. “Come on. There’s a tattoo I need to get.” I waited until he stood up and walked ahead of me. He paused at the door. I hadn’t moved. I knew I needed the tattoo but a large part of me didn’t want to leave this room. It felt safe here. I was protected. 

“Michelle?”

I looked up at Sam. “I’m okay, I just…” He was smiling sadly at me as if he knew what was wrong. I straightened and forced myself to follow. I was okay now. I’d be safer once I got the tattoo. 

The car ride to and from the tattoo parlour was awkward and tense. I refused to speak to anyone and I ignored Kelly’s apologies and attempts to talk. She got angry in response. I didn’t have anything to say. I felt like I would just end up screaming at her and I didn’t want that. Logically I knew that a demon could hide in a person well, but emotionally...it felt like she should have known.

I didn’t know how to reconcile my thoughts and emotions. The only people I thought might understand were Sam and Bobby, and even then it wasn’t the same. The demon had tracked me down. It had threatened everyone I knew and forced me to relive what were now my worst memories. I was still standing because my anger and it’s pride had blinded it to the trap. It was because of that luck, and thankfully Jane who had known, that I survived.

I got the tattoo on my ankle...and a smaller one on my inner thigh that I didn’t tell anyone else about. I wanted a backup plan. 

  
  


A day had passed and Kelly and I still weren’t talking. It made training awkward but we avoided each other as much as we could in the small house. I still didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t fair to her, but I couldn’t figure out how not to be angry. 

“Michelle?” I looked up from the kitchen table to see Giles in the kitchen doorway. “It’s two-thirty in the morning. Why on earth are you still awake?” He moved closer and paused near the table. 

“I don’t want to sleep.” 

He sighed before he moved to the stove. He grabbed the kettle that was there and filled it with water. Once it was back on the stove and heating up, he opened cupboards until he found mugs. He grabbed two and started making tea. Once the tea was ready, he handed me a mug and sat across from me. 

“Thanks.”

“You look as if you need it.” 

I put down the pen I was doodling with and blew on the top of the tea. “Yeah, maybe. I haven’t had tea in ages.” I was more of a hot chocolate person but I wasn’t going to say it. “Why are you awake?”

“I was rather...involved with one of the books I was researching through. There are many here that I have never seen before. It’s quite fascinating.”

I smiled. It seemed very much like Giles. It was good to see that someone wasn’t too badly affected; at least not in any way he was showing. 

“Would you mind if I ask why you don’t want to sleep?” 

I sighed and took a sip of the tea. I winced as I burnt my tongue. “I have nightmares. They don’t really allow me to get a lot of sleep. I don’t want to see what my mind comes up with after everything that happened.” 

“I see.” He put down his cup and leaned forward. “Michelle, your dreams are simply a method for your mind to deal with everything it absorbs daily. Perhaps simply not thinking about it, or avoiding it, is what’s causing you so much stress that it affects your dreams to such a degree that you are avoiding sleep.” 

I gave him a dark look. 

He smiled. “I apologize. Considering we hardly know each other, however, from what I understand, you play an important role for the...arrivals. I do believe that there is a famous quote, at least where I am from, which you might be able to take notes from Heal thyself, physician.” He looked away from me.

I sighed. “I wish it was that easy,” I said softly. “I don’t want any of this.”

“No one  _ wants _ the responsibility to save the world. We do so regardless.” He gave a small smile before he took his tea and left. He would know. 

**[tbc]**


	9. Tensions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tension builds in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading! I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please comment and let me know what you think. Thanks!

_ "The longer we dwell on our misfortunes,   
the greater is their power to harm us."   
_ _ \- Voltaire _

“Hit me!” 

“I’m trying!” I swung at Jane. She moved slightly out of the way, just enough not to get hit, and swung a fist into my stomach. She did not hold back. I bent over, the air forced out of my lungs. Something sharp and hard hit my back. I couldn’t catch myself as I fell. My hands skidded on the ground in front of me, trying to protect my face. Jane used her foot to turn me so I faced her. I still tried to catch my breath.

“Get up.” 

I glared but pushed myself up. She kicked my arm out from under me. I fell back with a grunt. 

“Without your arms. Use your middle.”

“What?” I looked at her incredulously. “How?” I had a vague idea of what she meant but that was something seen in action movies. 

“Use your muscles and the force of your movement.” 

I tried multiple times. Every time my arm touched the ground, Jane kicked it. “Can you at least show me?” I asked. 

She stared at me for a moment before she lay down. I watched as she brought her knees to her chest, rolled back onto her shoulders before kicking her feet out. She was standing in seconds. It looked fluid and far better than anything I thought I could do. 

“I can’t do that.” 

“Then you do not rise.” She adjusted her stance and waited. She didn’t look like she was going to move unless  _ she  _ chose to. 

It took all day. Jane constantly knocked my arms out from under me. The first time I almost made it, I did not adjust my balance properly. 

“I almost got it!” I grinned, staring up at her. I was covered in dirt. 

“I would not have made you if I did not think you could. Again.”

When I finally succeeded without falling, she threw something at me. I ducked. “Good. Your reflexes are improving. Hit me.” 

I stumbled into the library. Jane had finally released me from training once the sun had set. She did not follow me inside but instead walked away from the house. No one spoke to me as I went to shower before I passed out. 

The next morning, walking hurt. Existing hurt. Jane’s training was using every muscle possible. Including ones I didn’t know I had. I had never been fit before this. I avoided Gym in school as much as I could. It seemed that karma was coming back with a vengeance. 

I went to the kitchen first. I needed to eat but water took priority. I grabbed a glass and filled it. I wanted to chug it back but experience had taught me to take it slow. 

“What the hell happened to you?”

I looked over at Kelly. She was standing in the doorway, a mug in her hand. Giles had asked to join Jane in training us. He had to prove he was capable before she allowed it, but even then we were switching teachers each day. Kelly didn’t look injured. She looked like she barely broke a sweat with him. She didn’t look like everything hurt. 

“Jane.” 

It was still tense between us. This was the first we had spoken since our fight. I was still angry. I knew that I shouldn’t be, that it wasn’t her fault. She had been dead for years and people change. My anger wasn’t rational, I knew that, but I couldn’t talk yet. I would snap. 

“Are you talking to me now?” She snarked. 

I couldn’t stop my response. “Do you know it’s me?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to do this. “Nothing. Forget it.” I went to leave the kitchen but she blocked the way. 

“No. I’m not going to forget it. You’ve been a grade-A bitch.”

“At least I know who I’m talking to!” I snapped. I clenched my teeth. It would be so easy to shove her out of the way, even just to knock her out. 

“I knew it! I fucking knew it! That’s what this is about!” 

“Of course it is!” I cried out. “You’re my best friend and I was fucking possessed! You should have known!”

“I’m sorry!” She shoved me. I dug my fingers into my palm to stop myself from retaliating. “I’m sorry for not fucking noticing!” She shoved me again. “For actually wanting to think you’re happy!” She pushed me again. “For wanting something good to happen!”

“Yeah!” I pushed her back, harder than I meant to. She stumbled. “So happy while the demon was threatening all of you! It was so fucking good that she made me relive the worst fucking memories of my life!” 

“What?” she blinked at me, surprised.

“She threatened to pour bleach down your throat. She threatened to make me watch Jane choke on concrete, but not before ripping out all my teeth one by one, so yeah, it was a real fucking good time!”

“I didn’t know!” Tears were streaming down her face. She always cried when she was angry. 

“Jane did!” 

“That’s not fair!”

“Hey!” The deep voice shocked both of us out of it. Dean stood in the doorway to the kitchen, glaring at us both. Sam was behind him. “What the hell is going on in here?” 

“Nothing,” Kelly snapped. She glared at me. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. The brothers looked at each other alarmed. 

“You sure?” Dean asked. 

“Yeah,” I said. I stared at Kelly. “Obviously it’s nothing.” 

“Right,” Sam said. He looked at Dean quickly. “If it’s nothing, then why don’t we go out? We’ll teach you how to shoot.”

Dean looked at Sam alarmed. “What?” 

Sam shot his brother a look and nodded. “Yeah. You need to blow off some steam. Come on, we’ll split up.”

Dean took off with Kelly in the car. Apparently, they didn’t want too much attention near Bobby’s with gunshots. Not that it wasn’t a thing in America, but they felt it was better safe than sorry. It was more likely they wanted to distance Kelly and me. 

I followed Sam. Initially, I was walking fast, anger fueling my steps. We had walked long enough through a field that the anger had burnt away and I was beginning to regret the things I said. I was also beginning to suspect Sam might have been leading me in circles. I didn’t know the area well enough to confirm the theory though. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam had slowed so that he was next to me. 

“About what?” I knew what he meant. I just didn’t think he’d actually understand.

“You know what.” He looked down at me like he was disappointed. “The two of you were screaming at each other in the kitchen.” 

I sighed. “Yeah.” I stopped walking and crossed my arms. “I just...she should have known.” My throat tightened slightly as the reality of what that meant to me sunk in. “She’s...we’re best friends.” 

Sam sat down in the field and motioned for me to join him. I looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone for miles. As far as I could see there were no ant hills that I was about to sit on either. He started speaking once I sat across from him. 

“Michelle, when I was--”

“Don’t say possessed,” I said quickly, holding up a hand. “Dean still went for the holy water.”

He gave a huff of a laugh, shaking his head slightly. “Actually, I was going to mention when a teenager traded bodies with me.”

“What?” I didn’t remember that at all. “When?” I leaned forward, putting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands as I watched him. It still felt weird to be near him.

“Not that long ago, actually.” He looked away and ran a hand through his hair before focusing back on me. “It took Dean ages to realize it wasn’t me. He lived with him, even let him drive the Impala!” He leaned forward and looked at me. “We lived together most of our lives and even he could be fooled. You gotta cut Kelly some slack.” 

He had a point. One that I kind of wished he didn’t make. Anyone can make a mistake and things have a knack for being able to hide in plain sight. Humans did have a tendency to ignore the things they didn’t want to see. 

I sighed and leaned back, letting myself fall back into the grass. “I know. It’s just that…Kelly is kind of all I have here. She’s the one piece of home in all of this...insanity. I can’t help but feel upset that she didn’t know.” It sort of felt easier to say this to the sky, without having to look at Sam. “Everything just feels like it’s spinning out of control and not in a good way. I almost died, Sam.” I took a deep breath, trying to keep myself from crying. It was over and I was fine. I shoved the fear and hurt that was threatening to bubble up and overwhelm me back. 

“Michelle…” something touched my leg. 

I jumped, went to sit up and utterly failed. My stomach muscles protested. I lay back down, groaning. 

“Are you alright?” 

I turned to my side and twisted so that I could look at him. It had been his hand. “Ask me again after Jane stops training me.” His face broke out into a smile and I was struck suddenly by how attractive it was. It looked like the type of smile he had in the early seasons...years ago. 

He stood up, brushed off his jeans before reaching down to offer his hand. I reached out for him, feeling kind of pathetic that I needed the assistance. He pulled and I nearly crashed into him. 

“Woah,” I muttered. He was definitely stronger than Jane. I stepped back and brushed off the back of my pants. 

“Hey,” he touched my arm lightly. “You know you don’t only have Kelly here, right? You have all of us.” 

I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded. I gave him a small smile. “Yeah, thanks.” I looked around the field. “So, are you still going to teach me how to shoot?” 

It was possibly the worst decision of my life. 

Sam was utterly patient through the whole thing. We walked a little farther until we came across a small fence. I watched as he set up cans on it. It seemed a little cliche. 

“Doesn’t Bobby have like...a range?” 

“Yeah, but I figured you needed space away from the house,” he said as he walked back to me. “Now, have you ever fired a gun before?” I shook my head. “It’s easy. You aim, feel the recoil and time the trigger pulls.” He looked at me like that made sense. “Watch.” He turned towards the fence and aimed. He shot twice and one of the cans fell. “Okay?”

“I have no idea what you said, but I can learn.” I hoped. 

“Come here.” I stepped forward towards him. “Look, these are the main parts.” He spent the next while explaining to me safety measures, how the gun worked and how to reload it. When he was satisfied enough with that, he motioned for me to move. “Do you remember how I was standing?” 

I adjusted my frame slightly, moving into a position that was close to what Jane demanded from me. He moved closer. “Here, fix your feet.” 

I was suddenly very much aware of his size. This was the closest we had ever been, outside of the last two times we sat near each other. Something hit my foot. “Hey!” 

“You’re shifting back. Fix it.” 

I was suddenly reminded of how Jane trained. I scowled at him before I adjusted my stance. 

He handed me the gun. “Just aim for now. Don’t shoot.”

I nodded. It felt heavy in my hands and I was suddenly very much aware of the damage it could do. I needed to learn though, just in case. Sam moved my arms quickly, pushing down an elbow before he moved back. 

“When you pull the trigger, watch for the recoil. Relax and move with it, okay?” 

“Sure,” I said, though I wasn’t certain how anyone could relax with Sam touching them. I pushed back the thought. I was imagining impossibilities. I just felt small near him. I wasn’t used to that. 

“Fire when you're ready.” 

I took a deep breath, trying to ignore his presence before I pulled the trigger. I stumbled with the recoil and his hands were on my hips instantly steadying me. He let go just as fast as he touched me. 

“Try again and relax!”

“I can’t!” I pointed the gun down and turned to look at him. “You’re looming over me!” 

He blinked in surprise before he smiled. “I’m not looming.”

“You’re giant! You automatically loom!” I waved my free hand in his general direction. “Give me space. Go...cut your hair or something.” 

He laughed but obliged me and stepped back. “Will you just shoot?”

I was tempted to stick my tongue out at him. I turned and settled into the stance he showed me. I aimed and tried to relax but it felt like I could feel him watching me. I hated getting anything wrong and his attention was unnerving. I mentally took back anything I said about private lessons being better than group lessons. 

I shot. It went nowhere near any of the cans. Sam called out, giving me pointers and laughing when I glared at him. This was going to take forever.    
  


By the time we walked back to the house, my nerves were shot. 

“You just need to practice,” Sam said. 

“I know! I just need you to stop hovering! You’re correcting every little thing! It’s nerve-wracking!” I wasn’t sure how he thought teaching me to shoot would calm me down. Talking had calmed me, teaching me to shoot just tensed me up even further. I couldn’t even explain it to him. Having Sam stand close to me while touching me every so often to correct something made me very aware that he was a large and extremely built male. I wasn’t used to even being close to someone like him. Every insecurity I had before I got dropped in here was rearing its head. 

I raced inside, hoping for some space. I was very clearly overthinking things. Maybe I could get Bobby to teach me instead. 

**[tbc]**


	10. Suitable Lodging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!! I hope this one goes better than the last and that's all I'm going to say about it. Thanks for reading and, as always, please comment and/or leave kudos.

_ Apologizing does not always mean you're wrong and the other person is right.   
It just means you value your relationship more than your ego.   
\- Mark Matthews  
  
_

Kelly was in the room when I entered. She turned as the door opened and I stopped. The familiar anger rose up but nowhere near the level it had been. I remembered what Sam had said. I had to give some leeway.

“I’m sorry.” 

Her mouth dropped in shock. I rarely apologized. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve been so angry and everything’s been crazy and then this demon...I was hurt. I was trying so hard for someone to see me, to see that it wasn’t me and the only one who did was Jane.” She looked like she was about to interrupt so I continued quickly. “I know it’s not your fault. I mean, when did we ever suspect demons? But...I can’t explain what’s wrong with me. It’s more than the possession. I just...it feels like it’s not going to be okay….and when I saw you alive again, I thought it would be.”

“I’m sorry!” She ran forwards and hugged me tightly. “I’m so sorry. I should have known.” 

I hugged her back, relishing the reminder that she was still real before I let go. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but we’re okay. Let’s face it, you’ve been gone so long. It’s not going to be the same.” Both of us paused at that. I didn’t realize the truth in those words until I said them. 

“It’s definitely not the same, and I have to tell you what happened when I went with Dean.”

“Girls!” One of the men bellowed from downstairs. “Get down here!” 

We looked at each other before leaving the room. This didn’t sound good. 

Jane and Castiel were standing next to each other when we entered the library. Across from them were the brothers and Bobby, staring at the two of them. Dean looked like he didn’t quite know how to react.

“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked as we walked in. 

Jane turned to us. “I have acquired us suitable lodging.” 

“What?” I looked at Kelly. “What do you mean suitable lodging? Why?”

Jane shifted her stance slightly. “If we acquire more bodies as vessels, we will need more space. I have spoken to Bobby about the requirements and retrieved the angel while you were gone. We have found and obtained shelter.”

“How?” Kelly asked, seeming to cover what everyone was thinking. 

“It does not matter. We have found it.”

“You can’t just find a house! Things need to be done...like paperwork! And you need money!” I tried to sort my thoughts. 

Jane looked at Castiel and nodded. He stepped forward and pulled something out of an inside pocket. It looked like papers. He offered it to the brothers and Sam took it. 

Sam flipped through the papers slowly. His eyebrows rose as he read them. “It seems to be real. Everything is here, deed and all.” He looked up at them. “How did you do this?”

“The details are inconsequential,” Castiel said. “The lot had remained vacant. They were pleased to be free of it.”

All of us looked at each other. None of us knew how they had bought a house considering that Jane stole the clothes she wore and Castiel was an angel. Dean opened his mouth before closing it and shaking his head. 

“What’s it like?” Kelly finally asked. “Wait, it is a house, right? With a roof?”

Jane looked around the room. “Larger than this. It is surrounded by land and trees.”

“It is close to Aberdeen,” Castiel said.

“Aberdeen, South Dakota?” Bobby asked Castiel. He nodded.

“You wished for us to vacate this land, and we shall. We will not be far if Kelly and Michelle are the Gatekeepers you believe them to be.”

“You wished for them to leave?” Dean asked, turning to look at Bobby. His eyebrows were raised. 

“I might have mentioned it,” Bobby said with a shrug. “House ain’t that large boys.” 

I thought about it. “They have a point.” Everyone turned to look at me. “We don’t know how many others might come.”

“What?” I ignored Dean.

“How far away is Aberdeen from here?” I asked the men. 

“Bout three hours,” Bobby answered. I nodded. We needed a way to get there and back. 

“We’re going to need a car.” 

We decided to go look at the place with the boys. Bobby was going to give us a car and I asked Dean if, when he had time, he would teach me a few things about fixing it. Being able to fix it myself would calm me a lot more than bringing it to someone I didn’t know. 

We were not going right away though. The boys were leaving on a case first. Kelly and I stood on Bobby’s porch, watching them drive away. 

“Are they going to be alright?” I asked quietly. I didn’t know what they were going into but Kelly had been weirdly silent. I had gotten used to her talking to herself out loud, even though she tried to stop once she realized she was doing it. 

She finally answered. “I don’t know.” She kept staring after the car. “It could be nothing.”

“You don’t think it is, do you?” She still didn’t look at me. “Kels?”

“I don’t know. It...it might be bad, but it might be not what I’m thinking. I tried to warn them,” she said softly. 

“About what?”

“What I think they’re headed to. I know, like, they say not to change things in history, but that’s fucked. Besides, this isn’t history. It’s...it’s their lives.”

“What are they going into?” I asked. She looked concerned, but she was still staring off into this distance. “Kels?” 

“Something bad. It won’t be good, Mish. If we’re not changing things, then it’ll be worse than the zombies. Maybe not physically, but emotionally.” She suddenly forced a smile as she turned to me. “I could be wrong, I mean, I don't have an exact timeline. Who remembers that? I just...I really hope I’m wrong.” She looked back at the driveway once more before she headed inside. 

She had seen more than I had. This universe was not kind and it was not simple, especially to those brothers. I looked over at where the car was no longer visible. I hoped they were going to be okay. We needed them.

A distraction came in the form of Giles. Despite Kelly’s worry over the boys leaching into me, training did not end. Kelly and I were both forced to run with Jane pushing us harder and farther. When we had finally stumbled back to the house, Giles was waiting. 

While Kelly went off with Jane, I followed Giles to the back of the house where the makeshift range was. It was mainly clear space with targets. 

“I understand that Jane is focusing on self-defence through physical means,” he said. “And that you are being trained now in firearms. The research I have gathered suggests that that is not enough to fight the things of this world.” He adjusted his glasses before looking at me. “You wish to protect yourself by any means necessary?” 

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then you will learn how to use other weapons.” He walked over to one of the targets. He pulled two large sticks from behind it. “We will start with the staff.” He threw it towards me and I tried to catch it. I ended up only blocking it and it fell to the ground. “Pick it up,” he motioned before twirling the staff in his hands. It was easy to forget how proficient Giles was in anything but research. “Let’s begin.”

We started slowly. Giles showed me the best way to hold a staff which felt awkward, though in a different way from holding a gun. I almost preferred Jane’s method out of all of them so far. There was something soothing knowing that all you would need was your body, that you didn’t need to rely on weapons. 

As I got more comfortable holding it, he picked up the pace. Giles seemed to have the same theory as Jane. If you got hit enough you would learn how to duck. So far I only managed to block him a few times. The vibrations of the hits went all the way through my arms and made it hard to hold on to it. My reflexes were much better at dodging than blocking but I was still ending up covered in bruises. 

I sat in the kitchen eating toast. I was trying not to move too much. While I felt better after training with Giles, my muscles were still sore and the bruises I gained were still darkening. The plus side was that my appetite was returning. That was a win in my books. It didn’t stop me from feeling weird while eating though. There was a small part of me that didn’t want to get used to it, in case I had to run again. It wasn’t likely to happen, but I couldn’t help it. 

Giles had cleaned up and gone back into the library. I could occasionally hear Bobby and him talking about the things in this world and prophecies. I tried to tune them out. Kelly had already passed by as dusk fell outside. She was grumbling about Jane as she hobbled up the stairs. I winced in sympathy. I knew that feeling well. 

I stared down at the remains of my toast. I had eaten most of it. I threw it out and washed the dish before heading upstairs. Maybe if Kelly was around I would actually be able to sleep. 

I jolted up. The dream faded as I woke. I pushed myself off of the bed. Kelly was curled up against the wall for once and asleep. She looked dead to the world. I shuddered, but that didn’t stop me from checking to make sure she was breathing. She swatted my hand and sprawled away from the wall. I left her. 

It was late. The house felt odd. Tense in the silence. It didn’t seem like anyone was awake. Someone had always been awake since I had been here. As I got to the top of the stairs, the door slammed open. Dean stormed through. He didn’t seem to see me as he left the house. 

I went down the stairs slowly. I felt like I was intruding on something but as I got to the bottom of the stairs, no one was around. There was a sound though, slightly faint. It was coming from the basement. Did someone new arrive? 

The voice got a little louder as I went into the basement. Castiel was standing at the door, watching me as I came closer. I stopped on the stairs. 

“What’s happening? Who’s in there?” I could hear it now. Whoever it was was calling for help. 

“It’s Sam,” Castiel said. “There was an incident. We found Famine. Sam will need time for the blood to get out of his system.” 

Blood? I stared at him for a second, thinking of what he could mean. It clicked. “You mean he drank more?” 

“Yes.” 

I stepped closer. It was Sam screaming. “Is he going to be okay?” It was heartbreaking to hear him and the pain in his voice.

“He will.” Castiel looked at the door and then back at me. “He will require time.”

I nodded. “Okay. Is there anything I can do?” 

“No.” Well, that was straightforward. “You need to focus on your purpose here.”

I kept myself from recoiling at the thought. Instead, I nodded before trying not to run back up the stairs. 

The house was still silent. It was a little creepy. Jane didn’t sleep in the house. I assumed she stayed outside but I didn’t know where. I wasn’t about to search a junkyard at night. I stepped out onto the porch and sat on the steps. The night was silent too but at least it didn’t feel oppressive. It was too silent though. 

“What are you doing here?” 

I jumped at the voice and watched as Dean stepped out of the dark. “Dying of a heart attack now, thanks,” I snapped. My hands clenched as I willed them to stop shaking and my heart to calm down. He didn’t need me to snap at him. Not with his brother in the basement. “Sorry,” I said softly. “I just wasn't expecting anyone.” 

“You didn’t answer me.” 

I looked up at him. He was still half in the shadows but the whiskey bottle he was holding looked nearly empty. 

“I don’t sleep much. I thought I’d find Jane but…” I shrugged. “Kind of dark out here.” He didn’t respond. I considered whether or not I really wanted to say anything else. Dean was not the type to reach out. Kelly would want me to say something though. She should be here instead of me. “Are you..are you okay?” 

“Peachy.” The tone clearly suggested he was not. 

“Okay.” He moved to go past me into the house. “Hey, Dean?” He stopped but didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to get involved but something was prompting me. I had to say something. “I know it's not the same thing, but I’ve dealt with family having addictions. Your brother is strong. He’ll get through it.” 

He continued walking inside. 

We left the next day to check out the house. Sam didn’t come. Instead, Giles joined us. Kelly looked confused.

“Where’s Sam?” She asked as Dean and Giles got in the car. He turned up the music and ignored her. 

I leaned closer to her. “Sam’s in the panic room. Cas told me last night that they met Famine and-”

“Oh,” Kelly said. Her face dropped and she looked over at Dean. “ _ Oh no _ .” She looked like she wanted to go console him. 

“You know what happened?” 

Kelly looked at me. “Yeah, I think so. If I remember it right.”

“Is it going to be okay?” I asked. 

“I think?” Kelly sighed. “We’ll have to see. I don’t know.” She turned away and stared out the window. “I really don’t know.” 

I fell asleep in the car. The motion of driving never failed to put me to sleep, even with Metallica playing. My fear of nightmares was not enough to keep me awake this time. I barely slept anymore because of them. I just kept waking up in the night.

“Woah! It’s huge!” 

I woke up as the door slammed. I shimmied out of the back seat and stretched before I finally looked at what everyone else was staring at. 

The house was two storeys tall. It was more than a bit rundown. The banister on the front porch was broken in a few places and there was a shutter hanging by a thread from one of the second-floor windows. Some of the others didn’t even have shutters. I was a little afraid to see the inside. It was clear though that no one had lived here in years. 

“Are we sure it’s not haunted?” I called out and asked. The others all turned and looked at me. “I’m serious. We should check.” Dean sighed and turned back to the car. 

“I’ll grab an EMF reader.”

I stopped next to Kelly and glanced around. The area around the house was a mix of grass and weeds but there were trees surrounding the property. 

“How big is it? Like, how much land?” I asked, looking at Kelly who had the papers in her hands.

“Um..” she flipped the pages before going back to the first one. “Says we have about fourteen point two. I don’t know how big that is.” She went back through the pages. “Hold on, there’s a map. I moved closer to look at it. The map said most of the land was forest and it was huge. 

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” She looked up from the pages. “Come on, they’re going inside.” 

The porch creaked under our feet as we followed Jane. She produced a key and unlocked the door. I wasn’t sure where it had been or where she had put it after. 

Kelly and I waved our hands as we walked in. Dust had been kicked up as the door opened. Kelly coughed as we moved forwards. There was a staircase in the main hall just in front of the door. In the first room, there was a fireplace and large windows. There was also some leftover furniture. It looked like a couch under one of the plastic sheets.

“This place is a dump.” Dean’s voice carried down the hall. The EMF reader he held was silent. 

“Quiet man-child,” Jane snapped. 

“Man-child?”

I ignored them and continued to explore. The kitchen looked like it belonged in the seventies. It had an old fridge, a gas fireplace and a wood table. The floor in the kitchen was the only one that wasn’t wooden.

The stairs creaked as much as the porch did and I was a little scared that I was going to fall through. I held on tightly to the railing and went slow. Upstairs held three rooms and a bathroom with an old clawfoot tub. The water was likely going to be brown considering how long this place hadn’t been lived in. We’d have to run it for a while at least before using it. I went back downstairs to find Kelly as a thought occurred to me.

“Hey, how are we going to pay for electricity and water?” 

Kelly’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t think about that.” Her nose scrunched up. “We could get jobs?”

“That might be necessary,” Giles said. He walked up towards us. “This house needs some work but I do,” he took off his glasses and cleaned them. “I do believe that it will suffice.”

“It’ll take a lot of work,” Kelly said. “Obviously a lot of cleaning.” She started to list things that needed to be fixed. I followed her slowly as she started to move around the house. We were going to be living alone, just us and the vessels. While Jane could fight, there were bigger and badder things than she knew how to deal with. She had only been exposed to demons and they were just a small part of it. 

“We’re going to need protection,” I said. Dean and Jane came towards us. 

“What do you mean?” Kelly asked. The others watched me closely.

“There are scary things out there,” I motioned towards the door. “Demons are only a part of it, and I got possessed by one of those in Bobby’s house of all places so what’s to stop them from coming here? And, if the vessels are staying with us, we’re going to need some angel protection as well to keep them out...and anything else that might come to get us.” The more I thought about it the more panic crept up my spine. “How are we supposed to deal with this? Alone?”

Something hit me hard on my cheek. My head whipped to the side. I touched it gently and stared at Jane. “Ow!” She lowered her arm. 

“Woman! You are letting your fears guide you!” I heard Kelly snort and start laughing.

My cheek stung. “So you hit me?” I sent a dark look over at Kelly who was trying to hide her amusement. Dean’s eyes were wide.

“You were panicking. The pain forced your thoughts to change course.” She looked around. “It is time to return. We have much to plan for.” We all watched her walk out the front door.

“Are you alright?” Giles asked. 

“Yeah,” I touched my cheek again and winced. The woman packed a hell of a slap. “It worked, weirdly enough.”

“Good,” Kelly said. “You were starting to ramble. You made a good point though.” She looked at Dean. “What are we going to do?”

“We’ll figure it out.” He looked towards the door where Jane left. “Come on, don’t want the Amazon to come back swinging. Looks like she did a number on you,” he motioned to my face. 

“Yeah, took me by surprise.”

“No kidding,” he muttered.

“We will need to work on your reflexes,” Giles said. 

I looked at Kelly and she made a face at me. We both knew that was going to result in more pain.

The house was dark when we arrived. Dean went straight into the library. Giles muttered something about a book and went inside. Kelly, Jane and I stayed out. Far as I knew Sam was still locked up. I wasn’t interested in being able to hear him. 

Jane motioned for us to follow her. I looked at Kelly. She shrugged and we went after her. We walked through the junkyard. Jane finally stopped once we reached the end of it. There was a small grove of trees at the edge of the property.

“Is this where you sleep?” Kelly asked as Jane sat down on the ground.

“It is a small comfort in this mass of metal. Join me.” We sat across from her. One of her hands reached back and her fingers dug into the earth as she leaned back on it. “You will speak of the matters of the men. Tell me.” 

“Tell you what?” I asked. 

“What ails the tall one?” 

“He..” Kelly stopped. “He’s in withdrawal.” 

Jane frowned. “I do not understand. Was he in battle?” 

Kelly looked at me. She mouthed the word help and widened her eyes. 

I sighed. “No, not…” I tried to think of how to phrase it. “He has been in battle. The two of them have been fighting the things in the dark for all their lives. Right now, he’s facing a relapse of addiction. A demon got him drinking demon blood and then he couldn’t stop. He did though and got better once it was out of his system. The other day they came across someone who...brought it back?” I looked at Kelly. “I think he drank some and now they have to wait until it’s out of him again.” 

Kelly nodded. “Yeah. It was Famine. Basically, he forced everyone to overindulge in what their poison, what they desire,” she elaborated. “For Sam...that was blood.” 

Jane stared at both of us before she nodded. “Then it  _ is _ a battle, one in his mind. There is nothing weak in continuing the fight. Now, what are these  _ things in the dark _ ?”

Sam was let out a day later. We caught him stumbling his way upstairs while we left for training. When Kelly and I regrouped in the kitchen to go over our list for the house, Sam walked in with Dean. The tension was palpable. Sam looked a little more alive than what I expected. 

“What’s up?” Kelly asked, looking at the brothers. 

“We’re leaving. We got a job.” 

“What are you doing?” Sam asked. He looked hesitant at approaching. 

I gave him a smile. “Making a list of things we need for the house. I think we have everything.” I handed him the list and watched his eyebrows raise as he looked over it. It was likely the fact that I had underlined various protective measures like devil’s traps.

“Except jobs,” Kelly joked. 

“About that. We can get you IDs so if you have anything with a picture, hand it over.” Dean said. Sam handed me back the list. “Only jobs you can work will be under the table Kelly. You’ll want to avoid giving them too much info.”

“What? Why me?” She looked alarmed. 

“Because she can’t leave the house,” he said, pointing to me. 

“Why not?” I asked. 

“Michelle, you’re wanted by the police for multiple counts of murder in Tennessee. There are still cops looking for you. You’ll want to avoid going out too much,” Sam said softly. 

“What?” I asked. The demon had said she had cried when the police arrived, but I didn’t know she aimed them at me. “How do you know?” Sam suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“Because,” Dean said, “mass murder like that at a diner throws up red flags. Hunters looked into it. Rudy, actually. He’s the one who said they were looking for you, well, we didn’t know it was you, but Cas went to check it out, thinking it had to do with Lucifer...guess he was right.” Dean shrugged. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I looked back and forth between the two. 

“We didn’t...we didn’t think it was a good idea,” Sam said slowly. “You weren’t in the best of shape when you arrived.”

“You still should have!” I snapped. I took a deep breath. I could understand their reasoning, but I didn’t agree with it. This affected me. 

“She’s right,” Kelly said. “You should have told us. You can't keep secrets like that. What if we got pulled over? We wouldn’t have been prepared.” Kelly paused for a moment. “Wait, who’s going to drive? Like to the new place and back?” Her voice rose a little in pitch. “I can’t drive! I don’t want to even see Jane attempt it!” 

She had a good point. The only one who had any experience driving was me, but what would happen though if we got pulled over? Gainsboro was going to remain haunting me. The demon's laughter echoed in my ears as if she was still with me and I could remember Edgar’s face. 

Something touched me. I whirled, swinging into empty space as Sam leaned back from me. I focused back into the kitchen. The others were staring at me. Kelly looked surprised. 

“And that’s the other reason she can’t work,” Dean said. 

“Sorry,” I muttered. I tried to shake off the remnants of the memory and the knowledge that I was wanted by the cops. I stood up and left the kitchen. 

The boys were gone when I woke up. I hadn’t seen them since I left the kitchen the night before and took off running, trying to erase the lingering thought that there was something wrong with me. People didn’t usually slip into memories and forget where they were. 

I stared at the phones on the wall. They were labelled carefully with the organization and the name, which I assumed was to identify who it was supposed to be. Like Willis for the FBI. I had heard them ring a few times but I had never stuck around to listen. 

“Ah, good morning Michelle.” Giles was in the library, sitting in one of the chairs. 

“What are you reading?” I asked, stepping forwards. 

“It’s the Labreta Sagrada Demonicus.” I stared at him confused. He sighed and explained. “It is a book filled with information on the demons of this world.”

“Really?” My interest was piqued. I moved closer to see what the book said. He held it out so that I could see it. I stared at it for a second before looking at him. “I have no idea what this says.” 

“Really? You can’t read Latin?” He looked genuinely surprised. 

“Did you think I could?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I was fluent in English and knew a handful of French, Dutch and German from my school work, but Latin had never come up.

“I imagined that it would have been something you looked into, tried to learn, considering how much that demon that possessed you affected your life.” 

“You make a good point,” I said. “Would you teach me?”

Kelly was going to kill me. 

Once Jane found that I was awake, she took it upon herself to wake Kelly up so we could train. Afterwards, Giles started Latin lessons...for all of us. He felt it was necessary considering that many of the spells and exorcisms used were based in Latin. Jane was picking up the language easily. Kelly and I were already struggling. 

“Conjugate the verb sum,” Giles looked at Kelly. He was as ruthless in teaching as he was in training. 

She glared at me. “Um...sum, summes? Or is it just es?”

“Hell if I know,” I muttered. This was a bad idea. I should have just tried to memorize the exorcism. 

“It is sum, es and est.” We both turned and glared at Jane. 

“Why can’t we just record the exorcism?” Kelly asked. “That way if we need it, we can play it.” 

“On what?” I asked. “We don’t have a phone or anything.”

“Well, we’ll get one,” she said simply. “Phones, recorders...something.”

“Makes sense. You never know when you’re going to need it, or if you’re being choked or something and can’t say it.” I thought about it. “What if you set up a speaker system? Could you set up something like that? Have it blast out across a house.”

“But who would press play?” Kelly asked. 

“You’d have to have someone be there,” I shrugged. “But you can’t really have someone man a possession station all day every day.”

“Possession station. That sounds like you go there to get possessed. Looking to cure your demon? Tired of your host and want a new one? Come on down to the possession station!” Kelly called out in a fake announcer voice. I tried not to laugh. 

“Girls,” Giles cut in before he sighed. “Let’s go over it again.”

[tbc]


	11. Creatures of Emotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are starting to get a little more complicated and conversations are had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Slight spoilers for the first book of the Darkest Powers Series by Kelley Armstrong. Also, there's talk about addiction and addiction in family members.   
> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! I'm trying to keep them at a decent longer length. Let me know what you think!

_ "When dealing with people,   
remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic,   
_ _but creatures of emotion."_   
\- Dale Carnegie   


“Where are we going?” I asked. There were too many places things could hide. I didn’t know how Bobby handled it, though I supposed he was used to it. Maybe he just wasn’t afraid. 

“We’re exploring!” Kelly grinned at me. “Come on.”

“We’re going to get lost.”

“No we’re not,” she said. “It’s not that big.”

I snorted. We were surrounded by cars. I couldn’t see over some of the piles. “How many cars do you think are in here?”

“Tons. Fully working cars...probably a handful. I don’t think the rest is countable.” She looked around before finally stopping. “You remember our conversation?”

“Which one?”

“Zombies, and when we watched them drive off before, well, Famine.” 

I shuddered, remembering it. The idea of zombies still freaked me out. “Yeah, I remember.”

“I...I warned them. I  _ tried  _ to warn them about Famine. They stepped right into it.” Kelly’s voice cracked slightly. 

“Kels…”

“No, I...I should have done better! I should...I should have made them stay.” She wiped her eyes and looked up to the sky. 

“You really think that would work?” I asked softly. “Come on, they...if you told them everything, you think they’d stay?” I waited. There was nothing that I could say to make her feel better if she didn’t realize it herself. 

“No,” she finally answered. “Not if they knew about all the people who were dying.”

“Yeah, they’re not the kind of people who can sit back and let things happen if they can stop it. That’s what makes them...them, right?”

“Yeah. I just...I don’t know if we’re actually changing anything. What’s the point of us being here if nothing changes?”

I thought about it. I wanted it to be simple. I wanted her to be right, for us to have a purpose so that we could get it over with and go home. “We have to be changing something. It’s not like we’re in the plot or Giles.” 

“But what’s going to happen? I’m a little fucking afraid to see what else this place can come up with!” 

“I don’t know,” I admitted. She had a good point. This world was terrifying. I wanted to go home.   
  


* * *

We walked back in silence. Jane met us at the door. 

“There is another.” She didn’t specify who but we followed her in. We passed the library where Giles was reading and Bobby was on the phone. Neither of them looked up. 

We stopped at the iron door. Another chance to prove them wrong...or prove them right. I looked at Kelly who looked back. Neither of us made the first move. Jane stood by us, waiting. Finally, I stepped up and looked in. 

A young girl was looking around the room. I couldn’t place the age but she looked somewhere in her early teens. 

“It’s a kid,” I said softly, turning to look at Kelly. “Like, a girl, a teen. You know any teens with blond hair and red streaks?” I was hoping she was going to say no. If she did, we could use it against the theory of us being Gatekeepers. 

Kelly shrugged. “Not that I know of?”

Jane sighed. “Ask for her name. What is she called?” I looked at her. A simple solution...and yet neither of us thought of it. 

I looked back in. “Hello?” 

The kid turned to face the door. “Where am I? Where are my friends?”

“What’s your name?” I looked back at the others and shrugged. It wasn’t like I knew what to say. Especially to a kid who was probably scared out of her mind. Kelly rolled her eyes at me. 

“Where’s Derek?” The girl asked. “Or Simon? Or Tori? What have you done to them?” The names were vaguely familiar. 

“Your name, please,” I asked again. 

“Chloe. Chloe Saunders.” 

“Oh! Right!” I jumped at Kelly’s reaction and turned to her. “Chloe!” she said again. I stared at her blankly. She sighed. “Necromancer? From Kelley Armstrong’s teen series?”

It took a second before I remembered. It was a book series that was based on her adult novels but aimed at teens. “Oh! Oh.” Fuck. Another one we knew. I thought about the little that I knew about her. She was a genetic experiment and was basically kidnapped and forced into another trial. 

“She’s calling for the others. Has to be after the first book.” 

“So what do we do?” I asked softly. 

“Let her out?” Kelly said. “Unless Bobby has bodies stashed in the immediate area, we should be fine.” We both stared at each other before we ran for the stairs. I skidded into the library and Kelly crashed into me. We were already calling Bobby’s name. He looked up, scowling as he hung up one of the phones and I realized we were lucky he was off it. We could have easily screwed something up. 

“Do you have any bodies buried nearby?” Kelly asked quickly.

“Why?”

“We, well, the new one. The one in the basement. She can raise the dead. By accident!” Kelly exclaimed the last part. I nodded.

“Excuse me?” he made a face like he couldn’t believe what we were saying. 

“She’s a necromancer,” I said. “Powerful but a teenager.”

“She isn’t dangerous,” Kelly added quickly. “But she’s probably going to be nervous so stuff could come out by accident. So...is there?”

“Do I look like an idjit?” He asked. No one answered. 

“Right,” I stepped back, assuming that meant a no. “Okay, thanks.” We ran back downstairs before anything else we said got us in trouble. 

Jane was still at the iron door with her arms crossed, waiting for us.

A thought struck me. “Hey, do you think this is what’s going to change? Like, it’s still zombies, sort of, but...her.” 

“I don't know,” Kelly looked like she was thinking about it. “Maybe? I’d definitely prefer hers because she can stop them.” 

“Do her zombie eat people?” I asked, unable to remember.

Kelly blinked at me. “I have no idea.” 

I stepped up to the door and stared into the view hole. 

“Hey, Chloe? We’re going to let you out. Don’t worry. Everything is okay. We’ll explain.” I stepped back and looked at the door. “So, do either of you know how to open this?”

“Turn the handle?” Kelly snarked. I made a face back at her.

“Alright, you do it.” 

Kelly stepped up and tried to open it. It didn’t budge. She moved back and motioned to me. I grabbed the handle and pulled. Nothing. Jane pushed me out of the way and opened it with one hand. I eyed her carefully as she stepped back. How strong was she?

I focused on the girl inside. “Chloe? Hi. I’m Michelle. This is Kelly and that’s Jane. Sorry about this. Just...a protective measure. Come on, let’s go upstairs. We’ll tell you everything.”

She was questioning us by the time we reached the top of the stairs. 

“Are you from the Edison group?” 

“Who?” I looked back.

“The Edison group! The ones who kidnapped them, sent them to the boarding house thing and were chasing them down.” Kelly explained from behind her. “No, we’re not with them.”

“Those guys?” I sort of remembered them. “They were idiots from what I remember.”

“So who are you?” She was watching us carefully. I led her to the kitchen. It had a table but it was conjoined to the library. I figured it would be better for everyone if we were all connected. 

“Don’t mind them,” I motioned to the men. “Sit. We’ll explain.” I got everyone water and sat down. Jane remained standing by the doorway to the hall. 

Kelly started talking and I watched Chloe. She seemed older than her age, something in the way she was frowning, but asking questions. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t freaking out about this. I expected more of a reaction. It didn’t make sense. Everyone seemed to be dealing with their arrival better than I was. How was it my luck that I was found by a demon first? 

Chloe started crying. Kelly’s eyes were closed. I instantly felt bad. I shouldn’t have wished for it. That was cruel. 

“The men have returned.” Jane was looking out into the hallway. The front door opened and we heard voices talking quietly. 

“Great,” Kelly muttered.

“Who’s this?” Dean asked as they entered. 

“Guys, meet Chloe. Chloe, meet Sam and Dean. The two bookworms behind you are Giles and Bobby.” Sam smiled and nodded as Dean raised his eyebrows. 

“It’s a kid.”

“ _ She’s _ a kid, Good eye, Einstein,” Kelly quipped. Dean gave her a look and she smiled back at him. 

“She okay?” Sam asked and I looked towards Chloe. She was crying harder, sobs shuddering through her body. I looked around. Jane stiffened and turned slightly, staring into the hall again. 

“Uh, Chloe?” Kelly asked, looking at Chloe anxiously. 

“You hear that?” Dean asked and the room went silent. We all strained to hear the noise. There was scratching at the front door. I looked at Kelly in alarm. 

“You don’t think…” I swallowed nervously as she shrugged. “But Bobby said…” I saw the boys step into the hall and I took off running without thinking. I ducked under Dean’s arm and put my back against the door. “Don't open this!”

“Why? Dean’s eyes narrowed. I felt the vibration of the scratching on my back. 

“It’s a bad idea?” He did not look amused. “Look, Chloe’s not...exactly normal.” I tried to explain. “It’s an accident. It’s just because she’s in shock.”

“What’s an accident?” Sam looked down at me. I forced a smile as the vibrations increased. I prayed it didn’t scratch through the door. 

“Raising the dead?” My voice went high. 

“What?” They both exclaimed. Dean looked like he was going to turn and get his gun. 

“Wait! We can fix it. It’s fixable. Just...don’t open the door!” They looked at me warily. “Do you trust us as Gatekeepers or not?” I snapped, finally reaching the end of my patience. 

“Fine!” Dean rolled his eyes upwards. I looked at Sam until he nodded. 

“KELLY!” I yelled down the hall. I could have left but I didn’t exactly trust the strength of the door. 

After a moment, the scratching stopped. I pushed off of it and headed to the kitchen. The men followed. Kelly was kneeling on the floor in front of Chloe. 

Chloe wiped her face and sniffled. “It’s gone. I’m sorry,” she cried.

I motioned for the boys to check. Sam took out his gun and went to the door. 

“It’s okay,” I said. I forced a smile as she looked at me. It was safe to say I had a new nightmare. I was never going to forget the feeling of the vibrations of a zombie scratching at the door.

“Okay?” Dean sounded incredulous. “She just raised the dead!” 

Sam came back and nodded. “Just a dog,” he muttered.

Kelly whirled on Dean. “She didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”

“An accident? What happens when she does it on purpose?”

My eyes narrowed and Jane stood up straighter before moving closer to Chloe. I turned to the men. “Then it will be for a damn good reason. Knock it off.”

“Michelle…” Sam’s voice was softer than Dean’s. I glared at him.

“No. She’s just a kid. You’re talking about her like she’s something you hunt.”

“She raised the dead!” Dean snapped.

“By accident!” Kelly yelled back. “Like you two idiots haven’t done something stupid by accident? Don’t be fucking hypocrites.” The boys were struck silent. 

“We’re just looking out for you,” Sam said. 

Kelly rolled her eyes. “We don’t need it. Not for this.”

Dean sighed and left without another word, shooting a look at Chloe. Sam looked at all of us before he followed him. 

“Stupid boys,” Kelly muttered before she turned to Chloe. “Come on, let’s go upstairs. You can clean up, hang in our room, whatever.”   
  


* * *

  
My skin felt like it was crawling every time I remembered the feeling of holding back the door. I didn’t want to even try to sleep. I didn't want to see what my mind was going to conjure up. Instead, I stared at the stars. There were so many more here than back home. When I was lost, running from the demon, I stared at the stars while I rested. I only knew a couple of constellations. They were the same back home. It was a little comforting. 

The door opened behind me. I heard the steps and I was surprised when Sam sat down next to me. He took a sip of his beer but remained silent. I glanced at him but stared back at the sky. 

Sam broke the silence and startled me. “Michelle, I’m sorry.” 

“What?” I looked at him. “For what?” 

“For everything. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be home with your family. You wouldn’t have to go through this.” My heart ached at the thought. Sam stared at the ground. 

“Sam, stop.” He looked up at me curiously. “You can't just blame yourself.” He opened his mouth, likely to protest. I held up a hand to stop him. “It’s not like you knew.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “but…”

“Enough,” I snapped. I turned to face him. “Jesus, Sam, if you want to blame someone then blame the angels who pushed for this to happen. Blame Lucifer who took out his daddy issues on the world or even God who left, but it’s not your fault, okay?” I rolled my eyes and turned back to the stars. I felt his eyes on me. “What?”

“You’re…” I saw him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. He took another sip of his beer.

“What?” I looked at him. He didn’t say anything else and I was left to stew in my curiosity. I considered asking him how he was but I didn’t think it would be appreciated. The silence didn’t last long though. I wasn't sure if Sam just couldn’t handle it since he was the one who started speaking again. 

“How much do you know?”

“Huh?” I wasn’t sure I heard him. 

“How much do you know?” He looked like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to look at me or far off into the distance. 

“About what?”

“How the apocalypse started? About…” he ran a hand through his hair as he sighed. “About Ruby.”

I snorted at the thought of her. “Do you mean the demon blood?”

He answered quietly. “Yeah.” 

I leaned forwards and rested my arms on my knees. I put my head in one of my hands and looked out onto the junkyard. “I know about all of it. She messed with your mind and played with your one weak spot - saving your brother. She came back when you were at your lowest. She twisted things. That’s what manipulators do. They manipulate. You thought you were doing the right thing, right?” I sighed and looked at him. “People make mistakes, Sam, that’s how we learn. You were a bit of an idiot about it, and you really need to work on your communication with your brother, but it happens. Move on. As for the blood…” I tried to think of how I wanted to phrase it. “Addictions are tricky things. Relapses happen. As long as you’re willing to try and fight it, as long as you have a support system, then it’s okay. You just have to keep trying. Things like that don’t end easily. It’s a constant fight.” 

He stared at me. “You sound like you’ve dealt with it.”

“No,” I shook my head. “But I know people who have.” I looked back at the stars. “You’re a good man, Sam, and you’re trying. That’s all that matters.” 

I thought I saw him swallow before he turned away. We didn’t speak again, but Sam stayed out after I went inside.   
  


* * *

  
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered. I tried to step over Chloe. It was one more body but there were too many of us crammed into the small room. We needed to figure out the house situation. And fast. It had been days since Chloe showed up and I had a feeling we’d have more soon.

I stumbled on the bottom step of the stairs. I wasn’t fully awake, but the remnants of my nightmare still lingered. I wasn’t going to sleep again. Dean was passed out on the couch of the library. I stepped in as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to wake him. 

The book Giles was using to teach us Latin was easy to find. I sat down on one of the chairs and turned on one of the small lamps. I glanced at Dean who didn’t stir. 

The Latin didn’t really make sense to me. It was hard to grasp when I had little exposure. Any experience I had in learning French in school helped, but I had been terrible at that as well. I didn’t know how to pronounce more than a couple of words of Latin. Looking over it resulted in a lot of guesswork and conjugations. It was not long before I got bored and found a book in English about European monsters. It was far more interesting and I could recognize some of the beasts as things that had popped up in fairytales over the years. Some of them must have been literal warnings instead of a metaphor. That was interesting to consider. 

“Michelle?”

I jumped at the sudden noise and turned. Dean was sitting up, blinking at me. “Sorry,” I whispered. “Did I wake you?”

“No, just…” he wiped a hand over his face. “What the hell are you doing up?” He squinted at me and I was half tempted to turn off the light. His eyes would adjust. 

“I..” I didn’t have an explanation that didn’t involve the truth. “Nightmares.” 

He nodded and stretched before finally standing up and heading for the kitchen. I turned back to the book. I was in the middle of reading about Chichiveches when Dean spoke again. 

“You wanted to learn about cars, right?” I looked up at him in confusion before I realized what he was talking about. I nodded. “Give me five to grab coffee and meet me on the porch.”   


He took me out to what looked like an old Charger. It was rusted in some areas and looked like it had seen better days...a long time ago. I winced as he popped the hood, the sound of metal grating on metal made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Alright, this is the engine.” He turned his head slightly to look at me. “Do you know how to check the oil?” I stared at him blankly. “Where to add windshield wiper fluid?” He asked, looking like he was hoping for a yes.

I shook my head. “I know how to drive and I can recognize the make, but I know nothing about anything on the inside. Seriously. I thought it was a win when I finally learned how to put gas in.” 

His head dropped and I watched his shoulders rise and fall with a sigh. “Okay,” he said. “Got a lot to learn then. Let’s start with the basics.”

It felt like I was being tested. Dean had moved off to the side, watching as I tried to check the fluid levels. I wasn’t completely confident but somehow it was easier to learn this than Latin. 

“Hey, Michelle?”

“Hmm?” I asked, not looking up from the car. 

“Who plays me?”

“What?” I looked up, confused. I hadn’t really been paying attention, focusing on the car.

“Who plays me? On the show.” 

I turned back to the car and said the first name I could think of. “Danny Devito.”

“What?” He sounded so upset. 

I looked up at him and grinned. “I’m kidding.”

“Oh god, it’s some douche soap opera actor, isn’t it?”

“That’s pretty spot on,” I said, thinking about the little I knew about the actor. “It’s a guy who doesn’t exist here, far as I know. He looks just like you back home. It’s weird.” I looked at the car and sighed. 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

I looked over at Dean and frowned. He sounded unusually serious. “Yeah.”

“You said before you dealt with addiction in your family.” 

I stood up straight and turned to face him. “Yeah,” I said softly. “I have.” I watched as he seemed to struggle with what he wanted to say. 

“I know it’s not the same, but..” he ran a hand over his face, “the fear of them relapsing...that ever go away?”

I took a deep breath and leaned against the car. I had said that in an offer of comfort. I never expected him to take me up on it. “I want to tell you that it does, that there’s a moment when everything goes back to what it was before it, but honestly, it’s not that easy.” 

He nodded and looked away. “Yeah.” 

“I know it’s not easy seeing it happen again despite how hard they tried, how hard  _ you _ tried. It just feels like failure, over and over and you live with the fear that this is going to be the time they don’t make it, that they don’t come back.” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away. I didn’t talk about this often. “It all depends on the person. They have to want to be better, to not look for the easy escape. It’s a hard battle, Dean, for all involved.” 

“I just…” his jaw clenched as he took a breath. “The hold it has over him? The power he gets from it? We faced a lot…” he trailed off. “Monsters? I can fight them all damn day long. Sam on demon blood? I’m terrified.” 

“Yeah,” I nodded. “They’re running on the high and they don’t see what we see.” I was silent for a moment before I continued. “I think Sam’s going to be okay.” He looked at me. “I know what you’re feeling, but Sam...he’s trying. He seems to want to keep trying, to be better. That’s so important, Dean. It isn’t going to be easy or simple, but as long as you’re there for each other, it’ll be okay.” 

“You really think that?”

I gave him a small smile. “Yeah, he doesn’t strike me as someone who purposefully repeats his mistakes.” 

“Who was it?” he asked. “For you?” I had been expecting this. 

I wanted to turn around, to go back to working on the car instead of having this conversation. I had started it though. “My mother.” I saw the surprise on his face. Everyone was always surprised. “It started before I was born. You don’t see the problems when you’re a kid and I...my sisters looked out for me. As I got older, I just got angry about it. She tried, multiple times, to stop, to be a proper mom. But things like that infect your relationships and my mom never really forgave any of us for either stepping up or being raised by them.” I swallowed, trying to ease the tightness of my throat. “Don’t get me wrong, I still miss her, but something I learned long ago was that you can love someone and still not like them.”

“Sounds like you had a rough go of it,” he chuckled darkly.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Who hasn’t? Pain isn’t a competition, especially when it comes to family. I have good sisters. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for them.”

“Yeah, I get that.” 

“I figured you would,” I smiled. It was silent for a moment and I turned back to look at the car. It was an opportunity to change the subject without falling into the awkward tension of telling each other too much. “Hey, Dean? I have no idea what to do next.”

It took a few more tries and Dean’s explaining before I started to get the hang of it. 

“I’m starving. Come on, let’s eat.” Dean threw down the rag he wiped his hands with before he headed inside. I paused. Working on the car was proving to be a good distraction. I was so focused on making sure I didn’t make a mistake that it gave me little time to think of anything else. I didn’t want to touch anything without supervision though. It might blow up. My luck in this world was proving to only be bad. I followed him inside.    
  


**[tbc]**


	12. Touched by an Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone reading this. It's a different direction from my more popular works, but I enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it.

_ “Nothing eases suffering like human touch.”   
―  Bobby Fischer _

We left Chloe with Giles as we trained with Jane. He was the least threatening out of all of the others. Considering Chloe’s power, we wanted to make sure she was calm. It also helped that he also had the most experience with magic. 

Jane continued to push us harder. She increased our pace in running and the reps of exercises we went through. She also increased her speed and force in the fighting. She didn’t hesitate in her strikes and Kelly and I left each session with more bruises. It was starting to become a little easier though, or maybe just familiar. 

Watching Jane and Kelly fight was always interesting. The first time Jane swung at Kelly and hit her, the latter reacted...loudly. It ended with Kelly yelling and Jane not backing down. Both of them were scary when they wanted to be. 

“Do you guys always train?” Chloe asked as I walked into the kitchen after cleaning up. I had a massive bruise starting to grow on my jaw from not ducking in time.

“Yeah. Every day. Jane makes us.”

“Why? I mean, aren’t you guys already fit? Why the need for the massive workout?” She was fiddling with the anti possession necklace we had given her.

I paused and leaned back on the counter as I faced her. It was true. The starvation and stress had leaned off the excess fat I had had, but training with Jane was shaping it into muscles. It was weird to see when I looked in a mirror. “Self defence.” I took a sip of the water. “There are a lot of scary things in this world. Supernatural things that aren’t like what you had at home. Most of them will kill you if they get a chance.” I could have sugar-coated it, but she needed the truth. She was more likely to get hurt if she didn’t know what was out there. “I was the furthest thing from being fit before. I had a run-in with a demon and got lucky. I’m not planning on letting it happen again.” Her expression changed as she thought about it. “Do you want to join?” I asked. “Jane could start you off slow if you’re interested.” She looked wary. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t have wanted to join if I didn’t have the experiences I did. 

“I’ll think about it.” 

Kelly arrived, pulling her wet blond hair into a ponytail. The boys followed her in. 

“We’re going shooting again,” Dean said. “Practice and all.” He grinned at Kelly. 

“Now?” she asked. “All of us?” she glanced at Chloe. 

“No,” Dean cut Sam off before he could say anything. “You two.” he motioned between Kelly and me. “We can split off again. Like before.”

“Cool,” I nodded, thinking back on what I had just told Chloe. We needed to protect ourselves. I turned to Sam. “Same place?” 

He nodded. Dean waved Kelly to follow before he turned and left. She smiled at me before heading after him. Sam waited. 

I put down my glass and sighed. I was tired. I looked at the kid at the table. “We’ll be back later Chloe.”

I was a little surprised that Sam still wanted to teach me. I wasn’t a great student. I complained about him last time during training and on the way back. Sam barely spoke as we walked. It was a little unnerving. He had a tendency to fill the silence. 

We finally settled back in what I assumed was the same area as last time. It looked like it, but a field with a fence was still a field with a fence. 

“Do you remember what to do?” He asked, looking down at me. 

“I think so,” I remembered to watch for the recoil. He handed me the gun and stepped back. I shifted into the stance that I remembered and aimed. 

I stiffened as I felt him step up behind me. I could feel the heat of his chest on my back. I felt his breath on my ear.“You need to take off the safety first.”

“Right.” I found the safety and clicked it off. He was too close. I could smell him. He was wearing some sort of cologne. I couldn't place the scent of it but it was weirdly attractive the way some men’s scents were. “Remember how last time you were too close? Totally not helping now.” I couldn’t concentrate when I could almost feel him breathing.

He stepped back and I aimed carefully. I shot and didn’t move properly with the recoil. None of the cans fell. I narrowed my eyes and aimed again.

“You need to relax. Breathe out slowly as you shoot.” 

I tried again and one of the cans rattled. It was not the one I was aiming for. I heard him laugh and I shot him an unimpressed look over my shoulder. 

“Here.” He moved closer and put one of his hands on my shoulder. The other went to mine holding the gun. He leaned in a bit so he was level with me. His hands were huge. He guided my hands up slightly higher. “Remember what I said about the recoil. Try to relax and move with it, but remember to keep it steady.” He let go slowly and I tried to ignore the lingering feeling of his hands. 

I took a deep breath and aimed carefully again. I wasn’t sure how to move with the recoil while keeping it steady so that it went where I aimed. I shot again and it didn’t hit anything. I sighed. 

“You’ll get it,” Sam said. “Keep trying.” 

Sam was laughing at me as I jumped up and down.

“I did it!” It wasn’t much that I had succeeded, but I did end up hitting one of the cans I had been aiming for. That was an improvement. Despite what Sam said, there was a trick to it. I just needed to figure it out.

“Really?” Kelly asked, meeting me as we walked up to the house. 

“Well, sort of,” I admitted. “I’m getting the hang of it. What about you?” I asked. Kelly grinned and I saw Dean shoot a look over me to Sam. 

“Fine,” she said. She looked away from me. She wasn’t telling the truth. “It’s not as easy as I thought it’d be.”

“That’s true,” I said. There was more to it than just pointing and shooting despite what the media claimed. At least, if you wanted to properly aim. 

Jane stepped out onto the porch as we arrived. “Come. It is time for a game.” Kelly and I looked at each other in alarm. Since when did Jane play games?

I struggled to get up the stairs. Kelly had managed to get into the shower. Jane’s idea of a game was standing on a high point and throwing rocks at us while we ran and ducked around the cars. It was a method, apparently, of teaching evasive maneuvers. Not that that was what she called it. The woman had terrifyingly good aim and while she didn’t aim for our heads, we were still covered in more than enough bruises. Neither of us was good at dodging rocks we didn’t see coming. 

I didn’t bother changing and fell onto the bed. I was asleep in seconds. 

It was a forest of gold. Music faded in and out as I walked down the path, searching for something. I saw her. I walked closer, just to be sure. 

“Helen?” My sister turned and faced me. She smiled. “You’re not supposed to be here.” And she wasn’t. No one was allowed in my forest. 

“I am not your sister.” 

I suddenly became more aware of my surroundings as it clicked. The dream, the one dream that wasn’t a nightmare, had been infiltrated. 

“Who are you?” The forest melted away from me and I was left facing her form in the dark.

She shrugged. “I’ve been called many things...what’s that song you like, pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name?”

Cold fear flooded through me. “Lucifer.” 

“Yes.” He moved towards me and I held up a hand, motioning him to stop. 

“Wait, before we go any further, show what you really look like or your vessel. Not _ this. _ ” I couldn’t stand to look at her face and know that it wasn’t real, that she wasn’t here.

He nodded and her form melted off into the shape of a blonde man. He looked older, a little worn by life. I wondered if this was just a vessel...and what made him say yes. “Is this better?” 

“Yeah, thanks.” I looked around for somewhere to sit and noticed a couple of chairs. I needed to sit if I was going to get through this. 

“I am certainly surprised to hear about you, Michelle. I can’t say I was expecting it. Gatekeepers were supposed to be a myth.” He was watching me carefully, a shrewd look in his eyes. The fact that he was aware of me made me think of the demon. It made me angry. “I can help you, Michelle. I can help you get them back, but I need something from you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re not asking me to say yes, are you? Because I’m really not a fan of that option.”

“Are you aware of what it means to be a Gatekeeper?”

“I help the newbies?” I guessed. It hadn’t been explained and I was still trying to not believe in the role. I was a little curious though and grateful that it wasn’t the nightmare of the diner. He pulled out the other chair and moved it closer to me before he sat down. 

“It’s more than that. What you are is in fact a guardian. The vessels are arriving and it’s your job to take care of them, to make sure none of them die like the lizard one...Voldemort?” He wiggled his fingers as he motioned to me and made a face at the name. “Honestly I’m not that too concerned about him. I mean, could you imagine him as a vessel?” I stared back at him, confused at the attempt of humour. No one said that the devil could be funny. 

“What about Kelly?” I asked. 

“She works for Michael. You are my vessel and my Gatekeeper.  _ You _ work for  _ me _ .” He pointed at me then himself and paused for a moment. “What I need you to do is help me convince them.”

“What?” 

“If you help me, Michelle, I can help you. Don’t you wonder about your nieces? Don’t you want to go back?” He reached over and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. I jumped up quickly, shoving the chair back. 

“Don’t touch me!” I looked down at him. “Why would I help you? One of your demons tried to kill me! I can’t go out in public because of her!”

“I’m truly sorry; they can be such...pests.” His lip curled and I stared at him for a moment. It was hard to believe that someone who created these creatures, who was so powerful...came across so human in some ways. He cared little for them. I wondered if God felt the same about us. “She did lead me to you though, so, can’t say I’m too upset about that.” 

I clenched my teeth together and tried not to snap at the actual devil. 

“How? How can you help me? My family is a whole other universe.” He looked like he was about to say something when it clicked. “You’re lying.” 

" I don’t lie.”

“A lie by omission is still a lie. You’re not telling me everything. I don’t trust you and I want you to leave. I want to go back to my forest. You can go...bother someone else. I don’t care. Just go.”

He sighed. “I see you’re not ready to hear me out. I’ll be back when you are.”

I woke up and was running down the stairs before I even knew it. I skidded into the library. “Where’s Castiel?”

Bobby and Dean were still awake. Dean looked at me. “What?”

“Where’s Cas? Call him!” I looked around. My heart was pounding but the angel hadn’t appeared. “Castiel!” I called out. 

“Woah! Calm down, Michelle. What’s wrong?”

“I need Cas!” I looked at Dean. Both he and Bobby looked concerned. I heard a creak on the stairs behind me and saw that Kelly and Chloe had appeared. Sam was entering through the door. I turned back to Dean. “ _ Please, _ Dean.”

Dean looked at Bobby and Sam before he sighed. “Cas, Michelle is freaking out and we need your help.”

“Mish? What’s-” Kelly was cut off by the sound of wings and Castiel’s appearance.

“Dean. What’s wrong?” Castiel turned towards me as I stepped up.

“I need protection,” I said quickly, ignoring the surprise around me. “The...thing you did on their ribs,” I waved in Dean’s direction. “The one that hides them from angels.”

Castiel tilted his head as he stared at me. “Why?” 

I stopped. They weren’t going to react well if I told them I dreamt about Lucifer. I still wasn’t sure it was entirely real, but it felt real. “I had a nightmare.” I heard someone scoff and ignored it. “Look, if we’re really Gatekeepers or vessels, don’t you want us to be hidden from them? So they can’t just...show up and zap us with them? Please Castiel, please.”

Castiel looked around the room as if looking for any objections before he turned back to me. “It will hurt,” Castiel said. 

“I know.”

“Hold on,” Dean stepped forward. “What the hell is going on? Why are you pushing for this?”

“Because we need it,” I said. I tried to think of the best way to explain. “I...I don’t know what’s happening, like the whole gatekeeper thing, but there is one thing I do know. I don’t want to be near an angel. I don’t want them to find me. I don’t trust things that believe in the greater good, not when it involves sacrificing a few. We should have done it sooner.”

“If you get it though,” Sam said and I turned to look at him. He was staring at me with that concerned look on his face. “Cas can’t find you. If something goes wrong…”

“I’d rather have him struggle to find me than be open to any of them showing up. I can throw salt at a demon, I can’t fight an angel!” 

“It just seems sudden, Michelle,” Sam said. “What brought this on?”

“I told you, I had a...I had a nightmare.” I clenched my teeth together, trying to keep myself from telling them that something claiming to be the devil was in it. “I know you think I’m crazy, but I’d rather be paranoid and be safe than need it and not have it.” 

“She’s right,” Kelly said, coming down the stairs. “We all need it.” 

I thought I heard Dean swear under his breath but when I turned to look at him, he motioned Castiel forward. 

Castiel stepped towards me and I held myself tightly, trying not to flinch. He touched the centre of my chest and it was like fire burnt through me. It was fast but I still bent forward in pain over it. I took a few deep breaths, trying to keep the sudden nausea down. 

I heard Kelly swear. “That stings like a bitch,” she grounded out. 

“Thank you,” I looked up at Castiel. One more thing to keep me safe. 

Castiel nodded. “I will find Jane.” He disappeared again and I finally felt like the adrenaline was fading. Lucifer couldn’t find me, couldn’t find us. 

Something changed after that. It wasn’t anything major, but the men kept looking at me as if they were expecting something to happen. As if they knew there was more to my demands for Enochian to be inscribed on my ribs than just a nightmare. I was trying to ignore it. 

Jane, in turn, decided we needed a break from training. Her training at least. Jane’s idea of a break resulted in us training with Giles. 

“Does he think we’re slayers?” Kelly muttered as he explained what exactly he had planned. 

“Maybe,” I whispered back. 

“Michelle,” he called out to us. “You’re first.” Giles decided that we needed a basic understanding and ability to use more weapons. He also decided we needed to work on using our senses with our reflexes. So he blindfolded us. It was a little terrifying but I was trying to not freak out about the fact that I could no longer see. 

I held the staff tightly before loosening my grip. I could hear Kelly muttering to herself. She had a tendency to do that. She also had a tendency to walk into doors occasionally. Something hit me in the thigh. “Ow!”

“Focus, Michelle. Listen to the sounds around you.” Giles' voice sounded. Easier said than done. Something hit me in the arm this time. 

“Ow!”

“Focus! Tune everything else out.” 

I wasn’t sure how that was possible. How was I supposed to block something I couldn’t see? I sighed and tried to do what he said. Jane had once calmed me from a panic attack by making me focus on the trees. Maybe this was similar. 

I took a deep breath. I could still hear Kelly, shifting about impatiently. There were the usual sounds of birds and the creak of something. I heard the wind of the motion of the stick and tried to move. I felt it glance down my other arm.

“Good. You must keep focus and feel it. Try again.”

I was officially certain that Giles was training us as if we were slayers. I took a breath and tried to concentrate. I could hear the small sounds of the place around us, Kelly shifting and then felt it. I raised the staff and it hit, sending vibrations up my arms. It was much harder to protect and hold the staff still against something you couldn’t see.

“Excellent, Michelle. Again.” 

**[tbc]**


	13. A Little Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another vessel arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this far. I hope you're enjoying it. Please let me know what you think!

_ “I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.”  
― Stanley Baldwin _

I was laying on the couch in the library, listening to Giles and Bobby talk monsters. I didn't want to sleep. I didn’t want to slip back into a dream with Lucifer. I had a feeling he was going to be upset that I hid myself from him...and that he’d show up as my niece to spite me.

“Michelle?”

“Hmm?” I opened my eyes. I didn’t realize I had closed them. 

“You might want to come and see this.”

I got up and followed Sam’s voice to the doorway, shaking off the sluggishness. I stood next to Kelly on the porch and it took a moment before I realized what I was seeing. Castiel stood on the ground in front of the porch, holding a bleached blonde man by his leather jacket. 

“I could not put him in the room,” Castiel called out to us. “He appears to be demonic in nature.”

“Of course I’m bloody demonic!” The blond snapped. His face changed and the boys reached for their guns. 

“Holy shit,” Kelly muttered. 

I put my hand on Sam’s arm and motioned for them to wait. I stepped forwards onto the first top stair of the porch.

“Michelle,” Sam reached for me. 

“Spike?” I called out, unsure if I was right. Everyone looked at me. 

“Know me then, do ya ducks? My reputation precedes me.” His face changed back to human shape. It was the strangest thing to see in person.

“Yeah...sort of,” I looked over at Kelly hoping for help. She just shrugged. I wasn't sure what to say. This was different. Spike wasn’t a kid, another girl or even a man like Giles. He was a vampire, one who enjoyed pain and violence...and we had to look after him. I thought back to the show. The only way I’d accept it depended on one thing. “Hey, Spike? Have you met any army guys recently?”

His expression changed from the mix of curious and annoyed to suddenly snarling. I stepped back and almost fell. The men had raised their weapons again. 

“Is that what this is? Another soddin’ test?” 

“No! No, there are no army men here,” Kelly said. I stared at his face. The ridges appeared flawlessly and suddenly. His yellow eyes glared at us in distrust. “You can let him go,” Kelly said. She was on the same mind track I was. “He can’t hurt anyone.”

“The hell I can’t!” Spike twisted in Castiel’s grip and punched him. Castiel remained unmoved but Spike swore and shook out his hand. “What’s he made of? Steel?”

I looked back at the brothers then stepped back up to stand next to Kelly. “What are we going to do?” She whispered. 

“I don’t know. I didn’t expect…” I trailed off. I didn’t expect this. Him. “Get Giles.” 

“What?” one of the boys asked. 

Kelly nodded. “She’s right. Get Giles.” No one moved until finally, Dean shuffled back enough to open the door and call Giles’s name. 

“What on earth is…” Giles’ voice faded as he stepped out onto the porch. “Good lord. Spike?”

Spike’s expression changed to a strange mix of smugness and caution. “Well well, if it isn’t the Watcher. This your doing then? Where’s Slutty the vampire layer?” 

Giles strode forward and Sam put an arm out, stopping him. “You will do well to watch your tongue.” 

“Or what,” Spike said, “you gonna read me to death?” 

“Guys!” Kelly cut in. “Giles, Spike can’t do anything. He’s...chipped.” 

“Chipped?” Giles turned to us, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“He ran into some army guys back at your world. They were running experiments...including a chip in the head that causes pain if he harms a human,” she explained. “We can test it if you want.” 

“No!” The boys said instantly. 

“So...what are we going to do?” I finally asked. “It’s not our house to invite him in to.”

“We’d have to ask Bobby,” Kelly answered. 

“Ask Bobby what?” We turned at Dean’s voice. “Ask Bobby what?” he repeated. The brothers were looking at us carefully. 

“If we should, or can, let Spike in. He needs to be invited.”

“Needs to be...he’s a vampire.” I nodded at Sam. It wasn’t surprising that he figured it out. 

“A vampire?” Dean looked at us incredulously.

“I thought you watched Buffy,” Kelly snarked. 

Dean made a face back at her. “You want to invite a vampire in?”

“We were gonna ask!” Kelly snapped back. 

“If the girls are correct,” Giles cut in. “That this...chip that has rendered him..impotent-”

“Hey!” Spike objected.

“Poor choice of words,” Giles agreed. “Regardless, we cannot leave him to run amok in this world causing chaos.” 

“He’s not dangerous,” Kelly argued. It was a strange scene to watch her argue over the state of a vampire. 

“Not dangerous?” Dean snapped. “Cas says he’s demonic! He’s a vampire!”

“The vampires of our world are turned due to the presence of a demon in their bodies,” Giles said. “If he is not...chipped, then I would recommend staking him. The nature of William the Bloody is not a kind one.” I realized suddenly that we had no idea when in the series this Giles was from. 

Dean made an expression, eyebrows raised as he pointed to Giles. I could practically see the thought that he was right. 

I clenched my jaw. The lack of sleep was not helping my patience. It would have been easier if they just trusted us. “Fine,” I said. “I guess this means we can’t invite him in.” 

“Hell no,” Dean said. 

I nodded, making a decision. I hoped Kelly went with me on this and I hoped I didn’t regret it. I stepped back down onto the steps. “Castiel, can you please take him back to _our_ house?” I looked at Spike. “Spike, let him take you. Wait for us at the house. It’s run-down but it’s what we got. We’ll be there soon, just wait for us. We’ll explain everything.” I waited for Spike to accept. 

He pulled out a cigarette from his coat and lit it. He looked at me as he inhaled. “Alright.” Castiel reached out to him and they were gone. 

I turned back to the others. “Kels, let’s get our stuff and get Jane and Chloe. We need to go.” She looked confused but as she met my gaze, I could see her resolve harden. She nodded and went into the house.

“I will join you,” Giles said. “Allow me to get my things.” 

“Woah, woah, woah, you’re not going anywhere,” Dean said. 

“Yes, we are.” I stood up straight. “You obviously don’t trust us enough when it comes to this and we’re getting overrun.” A lump grew in my throat. “This is why we’re here, right? Guiding people? We just need a car.”

“Michelle,” Sam holstered his gun and stepped closer to me. “It’s not safe.”

“I know,” my hands were starting to shake. I clenched them tightly. “You have no idea how much I know that.” I wanted to stay, to run inside and hide in the panic room where it was safe and ignore everything. I wanted to never fall asleep again and just go home. It wasn’t happening though. 

“Don’t be a fucking idiot. You want to go into a house that’s not even safe with a vampire!”

“What do you want me to do?” I yelled. “You won’t let him in! You said that this was our job!” I took a deep breath. “Dean, he’s here because of this. We knew we’d have to leave eventually. It’ll be…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. 

“Why don’t you wait? Wait a day and we’ll talk about this tomorrow. We’ll come with you.” I was shaking my head before Sam even finished. 

“If we don’t go now, I never will.” 

They both stared at me until Jane appeared behind them. Chloe followed. Jane stepped up next to me and watched the men carefully. Chloe was half asleep and rubbing one of her eyes. 

“Giles is grabbing his stuff,” Kelly said. She shifted a bag on her shoulder. “I got your stuff. Bobby says we can take the car you were working on with Dean. Here,” she tossed me the keys. I caught them quicker than I expected. She turned to the brothers. “We’ll see you around, I guess. You know where we live so…” she shrugged and gave a small smile before she walked off the porch. Chloe waved to the boys before following. 

“Do you have any salt? And paint?” I asked. “Just to be careful.” Sam and Dean looked at each other before nodding. Sam turned back into the house and I was left with Jane and Dean. There was an awkward silence. Dean looked angry but he didn’t say anything. It felt like forever before Sam appeared with bags that looked full. 

“Here,” he lifted one up as if he was going to hand it to me before he stopped. “Let me help you.” I nodded and he walked past me to where Kelly and Chloe were waiting. I watched as he pulled something out of one of the bags and handed it to Kelly. She was nodding as he said something to her. He looked back up at me before he smiled at Kelly and came back. He had a gun in his hand. 

“This is for you,” he handed it to me. It was the same one we used in practice. “Kelly has more bullets. Be careful.”

I smiled and nodded. “Thanks. You too. Both of you,” I looked at Dean. He just stared back. A card suddenly blocked my view. I saw my face on it. I took it from Sam and looked at it. It was a driver’s license for New York. “How?”

“We took your old license. Kelly gave it.” Sam shrugged as I nodded. 

“Next time ask.” Neither of them spoke. “Thank you. We need to get going. I’ll see you later.”

“I wish to speak with them alone,” Jane spoke up. I almost forgot she was there. “Wait for me.” I nodded and left her there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she was going to say. 

The others followed me as I found the car I had worked on. We climbed in and I adjusted the seat. The engine rattled for a moment before it settled on. 

“You sure you can drive this thing?” Kelly asked. 

“Sure enough,” I said, faking confidence. This was an older car than the last one I drove. I was lucky that my dad once taught me how to drive stick. Once Chloe and Kelly had their seatbelts on, I drove up to the porch. The car lurched once before I got the hang of it. Giles was speaking to the brothers before he finally followed Jane to the car. Jane got in. Giles hesitated. 

“Michelle, would you prefer me to drive?” he asked. 

I shook my head. I needed something to focus on. “I’m fine. Get in.” We waved to the guys who still stood on the porch before I drove off. My hands tightened on the wheel. 

“You okay?” Kelly asked. 

I let out a puff of air through my nose. “Yeah, sure.” 

Kelly stared at me for a moment before she turned in the seat. “What did you guys say to them?”

I glanced in the rearview mirror at the others. Jane stared back at Kelly. 

“It is of no consequence.” 

Kelly turned back to face the front and raised her eyebrows at me. I shrugged. The car creaked a bit and Kelly turned on the radio. No one spoke for the rest of the ride except to give directions. 

* * *

Spike was waiting on the decrepit porch with Castiel. He was still smoking. They both turned to look at us as I stopped the car. 

“Mish? You coming?” I looked over at Kelly. Her door was already open and she was half out of the car. She looked at my hands. I followed her gaze. My knuckles were white from the grip I had on the wheel.

“I…” It was one thing to leave in the heat of the moment, but I had spent the last three hours on the road thinking about how insane this was. I wasn’t much safer in the car but it was an automatic exit plan. I took a deep breath and pried my hands off of the wheel. “Okay,” I muttered. “I’m okay.” I got out of the car quickly before I could change my mind. I walked up next to Kelly towards Spike. Jane led Chloe past them, keeping her eyes on Spike as long as she could. 

“Well? You want to tell me what this is all about?” Spike asked, breathing out smoke. 

Kelly took the lead this time. “You’re not in your world anymore. I don’t know how to put it lightly, but everything you know is….gone.”

I snorted. Spike just watched us carefully. This was the second time that Kelly told someone their world was over. I should have helped but I didn’t. Spike’s reaction was unexpected. He seemed almost giddy.

“Everything? That means no slayers. Ha! Perfect!”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Giles said as he stepped up the porch. 

“You brought the Watcher?” Spike made a face. “To what? Bore me to death?” 

“Not quite,” Giles pushed his glasses up and punched Spike. I jumped back, not expecting the sudden reaction. Spike hit back then fell, clutching his head. “Fascinating. It seems you were correct.” 

“Obviously,” Kelly said. She waited until Spike was standing again. “Look, there are no slayers but there’s still hunters,” Kelly said. “People that hunt and kill things like you, including the two guys you met back at the other house. So that means no hunting, no killing and you don’t say yes to any demons or angels that ask. You’re going to stay with us and we’re figuring this out as we go.”

I watched as Spike’s eyes narrowed and remembered that he was chipped, but he still didn’t have a soul. “You have a choice,” I said calmly. “You stay with us or you go back into the world on your own. If you leave, though, every hunter here will know exactly who you are and how to kill you. Do you understand?” I left it unsaid that the reasoning would be because I would tell them. He was innocent in his arrival, but his hands were still stained with blood. I wouldn’t have it be fresh with victims from this world as well. 

His lip curled and he took another inhale of the cigarette. He finally rolled his eyes and waved his hand. “Yeah yeah, peaches, be a good bloody ponce. I got it.” He raised an eyebrow. “You gonna let me in?” 

I looked at Kelly, before looking over at Castiel. He was discussing something quietly with Jane as she watched us. I nodded. “Alright,” I said. “Come in, Spike.”

* * *

  
I watched the sunrise from the porch. Spike had laid claim to the basement once we blocked out the windows. The others had fallen asleep, all of them in one room like before. There was a lot we needed to do to this place. I had started but it wasn’t enough. I yawned.

“You should sleep.” I looked up to see Jane standing near me. She moved carefully to sit next to me. “You’ve done much on the house.”

I nodded. I had been hyped up on fear and adrenaline. I couldn’t let myself fall asleep in the house. I had spent the night painting devil’s traps and other protection signias everywhere. Sam had left a notebook with the information in the bags he gave us. 

“Sleep. I will maintain watch.” She nudged me with her arm and waited until I stood up. I could trust Jane. I turned to walk into the house when a rumble stopped me. I looked to the driveway. Jane stood as we both watched a familiar car come towards the house. 

The car slowed to a stop and the guys got out. They scanned the area before coming over to us. 

“Are you alright?” Sam asked, looking me over. I nodded and blinked, wiping the tiredness out of my eyes. Something settled a little further with their presence. 

“You look like shit,” Dean said. “What the hell did he do to you? Did he feed on you?” Sam straightened and they both looked me over, likely looking for bite marks. 

“Who? Spike?” I asked.

“The vampire! Where is he?” Dean nearly growled and looked over my shoulder. “Where’s Kelly?”

“Sleeping?” I guessed. “It’s early. Spike didn’t do anything, except keep me company for a bit while I...redecorated.” I trailed off and shook my head, trying to wake up a bit. “He can’t feed on anyone. You can ask Giles. He tested the chip.”

“How?”

“How did he test it? He punched him. Spike hit him back and the chip went all...” I made a noise like a buzzer, “and he went down.”The boys looked at each other.

“Really?” Dean asked. I nodded. 

“Michelle...you said you redecorated?” Sam asked.

“Go look.” I motioned for them to enter and stepped aside. I smiled at Jane and waited for their reactions.   
  


* * *

  
“Holy shit,” Dean muttered as he looked up at the ceiling. In each doorway, there was a trap either on the floor or the ceiling. I also had a few in areas that could be covered with carpets once we got them. “Least you didn’t make a panic room,” he laughed for a moment before it faded and he looked back at me. “Oh god, you didn’t, did you?”

“No, I...don’t know how. I’d need Bobby’s help for that.” The brothers stared at me. We all knew that I would have if I could. “Why are you here?” 

“We came to...er…” Dean looked at Sam.

“To help fix the house,” Sam said before shrugging. “We have some time.”

“Time?” I raised an eyebrow. “During the apocalypse?”

“You want our help or not?” Dean snapped. 

“Fine,” I snapped back. “I’ll wake up Kels and send her down.” I looked at Jane. “I’ll try to sleep.” 

She nodded. “Tomorrow, you train harder.” 

I nodded back. I waved to the boys before I headed up the stairs. It almost felt like I was dragging my feet. I shook Kelly awake when I got to the room they were sleeping in. 

“Kels...Kels, get up!” It took me a few tries before I convinced her that she needed to wake up because the Winchesters were here. 

“You look like shit,” she muttered, unknowingly mirroring Dean’s words. 

“I know. I’m going to sleep. They said they’d help fix the house. Watch them or something.” I collapsed on the nearest blanket that was on the floor and passed out before Kelly left the room.  
  


* * *

  
I woke up covered in sweat. The room was lit up by the sun. We needed to figure out curtains quickly. I headed downstairs. The house was empty. Panic suddenly encased me. Was I dreaming again? I yelled out for someone, for anyone. 

“Michelle? You alright?”

I turned to find Sam in the doorway. The panic started to subside and my heartbeat settled. I smiled in relief. “Yeah, yeah, where is everyone?” 

“Dean got hungry and took Kelly for food and supplies. Jane and Chloe went walking somewhere. Giles said something about makeshift weapons for training. I think he went to the backyard.”

“Oh.” 

“I’m working on the porch if you want to join me. You know, for company,” he shrugged. I gave a small smile and nodded. It would be better than being alone.

“Do you even know how to fix a porch?” I asked as I watched him. He knelt by the stairs with wood and tools. 

“No, but I can try,” he laughed. I couldn’t help but smile. Sam was easy to talk to. Despite his size, he was comforting somehow. 

I moved closer. “Let me help.”

He leaned back a bit and slowly looked up at me. “Do you know how to fix a porch?” he smirked.

“No, but I can try.”   
  


* * *

  
We worked mainly in silence. I replaced some of the broken floorboards while Sam worked on the stairs and posts. I wasn’t sure how we were going to keep this up. The boys wouldn’t be able to stay forever and there was a lot of work that needed to be done. I wasn’t sure if the others knew how to fix anything...at least without ruining any of the traps and sigils. 

“Hey, Sam?” I called out as I sat back on the porch. He looked up, wiping sweat from his brow. His plaid shirt had been taken off when I wasn’t looking and he was left in only a tank top. It was easily distracting. “Do you think I went overboard?”

He stared for a moment before he finally shrugged. “It’s understandable.” He ran a hand through his hair and sat down on the steps, facing me. “You’ve been through a lot, Michelle. No one expects you to be...okay.”

“It seems...it’s just that everyone stares at me like I’m…” I trailed off, unsure of how to explain it. I was admitting more than I meant to. 

“A freak.” I looked up at Sam who was staring at me intensely.

“Yeah.”

“Michelle…”

I cleared my throat, looking away from his gaze. It was too intense, too much there in a way that it felt like he was looking through me. We both turned at the sound of the Impala coming down the drive. I heard Sam sigh but we both watched as it parked. Kelly came bouncing out. 

“I got a job!” she said grinning. 

“What? How?” I got up off the floor of the porch. I moved towards Sam as Kelly came up the stairs. Dean wasn’t far behind. 

“Well, we got supplies and then went for food. We were at a diner and the waitress mentioned she needed staff. Pretty sure she only agreed because Dean amped up the charm and recommended me. Probably thinks he’ll be around more since we’re such great friends.” She rolled her eyes. 

Dean snorted. “We got more stuff. It’s in the car.”

“Okay,” I said. Dean headed back to the car and Kelly followed. I stood with Sam for a moment before I moved to go help. I heard him follow but the conversation we had was dead.   
  


* * *

  
A problem arose that night. 

We followed the sound of shouting. The boys ran into the house first, guns out and ready to shoot. Kelly, Jane, Giles and I followed behind. 

“What the bleedin’ ‘ell is this?” Spike stood in the doorway to the basement. He was reaching out but couldn’t seem to move. “What the bloody ‘ell ‘ave you done to me?”

I stopped. There was a devil’s trap on the ceiling, one of the many I had painted. 

“Just walk through,” Dean waved him forward with his gun. 

“Don’t you think I’d do that if I could, you bloody poof,” Spike snarled. “Get me out!” 

“I thought you were a vampire,” Kelly said slowly. “Not a demon.” 

“Cas did say he was demonic,” Sam inputted. 

“But how?” I finally spoke up, looking between Spike and the ceiling. “It’s meant to trap demons here. You’re not from here.” 

“It would seem he’s demonic enough for it to work,” Giles said. “Fascinating.” He seemed to ignore the unimpressed look Spike shot him. “That the magic of it works across worlds...it should not be feasible.” 

“We don’t have magic though.” Everyone turned to look at me. “Back home, least, far as I know.”

“It could be possible that magic transcends universes,” Giles said, walking around the trap. “You truly cannot move?” 

“Would I still be standing here if I could?” Spike snapped.

“Does that mean magic...from any universe can work...in any universe?” Sam asked. 

“But if there’s no magic in my world, does that cancel any magic out? Like would a demon trap work there if there was a demon there?” I thought about it. “I don’t think we have demons. Just...terrible people.” 

“It is all a widely theoretical field,” Giles added. “We cannot test the theories with a wide statistical average seeing as how...we’re stuck here. Yet it remains remarkable to see.”

“I have a headache,” Dean muttered. 

“Enough already!” Spike yelled out. “Get me out of here!”

It broke the focus on the magic and possibilities between the three of us. Sam holstered his gun. He looked back at me. “He won’t be able to live here or move around with all these traps. You’d have to let him out every time.” 

“He can sleep in the barn,” Dean said. 

“We don’t have a barn,” Kelly looked at him like he was an idiot. Dean shrugged like he didn’t think it would matter. 

My throat started to tighten. “I can’t...I can’t erase them.” They were the only thing that helped me feel secure here. This house was too open. There wasn’t a panic room and there was nothing that would keep us safe. I had to keep us safe. 

“We could get him a shed,” Sam suggested.

“Put me in the yard like I’m a dog? I don’t think so!” Spike sneered at us. “Let me out.” 

“No.” I shook my head. “There has to be a way. I’m not taking them down.” I watched Spike’s face change, snarling again in response.

“What if...we left the basement. I mean, the only one in there is Spike. Not like anything’s getting past him and he probably can’t get possessed. And...the back door?” Kelly offered.

“No.” I clenched my hands tightly, nails digging in my palms. “I spent all night painting them. If I take it down, we won’t be safe.”

“You can’t leave me like this!” 

“I can’t take it down!” I shouted back. I turned to Kelly and the others. “I _can’t_.” 

“Okay, hold on,” Kelly wrapped an arm around me and directed me away, back towards the front door. “Family meeting.” She called out for Jane to join us. Kelly sat me down on the stairs to the porch. I leaned down instantly, trying to calm the pounding of my heart and the sudden need for air. 

“-chelle. Michelle!” I jolted at her voice. “Hey, listen to me,” Kelly said softly. “I get it. Okay? You want to feel safe, but it’s okay. We’ll have enough traps around even if we take a couple down, just enough for Spike to be able to move around.”

I shook my head. “We need one at every entrance. They can get in everywhere, Kels. If they can get to me at Bobby’s, they can get us here.”

“That thing was looking for you and it got lucky. Sam sent it back to hell. It’s not coming back.” 

“It could!” I snapped. 

“It will not,” Jane said. Her voice was strong and steady. “The intruder that gained control of your body could not disguise itself completely. If another was able to infect one of us, we will be able to deal with it as well. I was uninformed of the danger. It will not happen again.”

I wanted to believe her. I did. My memories kept flashing in front of me though. Every time I closed my eyes, it felt like I could still feel it in me. It felt like she was still coming, waiting at the sidelines to strike. 

“I promise, Mish, you’ve done such a good job here. You can relax it a little. We can find other ways to protect this place.” 

“Like what?” I asked. My voice cracked and I was trying to hold back from crying. 

“I don't know, we’ll ask the boys. We’ll figure it out.”


	14. Nothing Remains; Begin Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from this quote: “I give you this to take with you: nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” ― Judith Minty, Letters to My Daughters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading it! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Fair warning, there's a little spoiler for Kelley Armstrong's The Summoning (aka Chloe's story). Please let me know what you think. Thanks again!

_I could make you scared, if you want me to_   
_I'm not prepared, but if I have to_   
_He said, "I can make you scared, it's kind of what I do_   
_If you're prepared, here's what I propose to do"_   
_\- Scared by The Tragically Hip_

Figuring it out resulted in a lot of arguments between Spike and I. Kelly tried to mediate between us, Dean only further instigated it between us, but Sam gave the solution. He brought us a notebook and filled it with things like the exorcism and Giles went over how to pronounce it all. It took three days to reach an agreement. I was not fully confident with it. It made me nervous to see areas without the traps, but I tried to force myself to make due. 

Three days for the house to come together and for the boys to feel comfortable enough to leave. We still didn’t have much electricity. The boys had rigged something up with the fuse box and a generator Dean had bought so we could only have it on for a small time at night, but Jane was used to living off of the land and not having electricity, so we were managing. So far we had a lot of campfires. 

Kelly had been learning and practicing driving with Dean in our car as they went to and from her new work. When Dean was at the house, he balanced helping with it and working on our car. Chloe cleaned while I helped fix the house with the boys. Jane surveyed the area as well and helped set up the things we needed to survive. Giles continued to train us while he could, particularly in ways to stake a vampire. Just in case. Spike stayed mainly out of the way, only to toss in comments about everything.

“Here,” Sam handed me a bottle of aspirin. 

“Thanks.” I took two and swallowed it with water. My head was pounding, likely from the lack of sleep and I was a little glad the boys were finally leaving. Dean had gotten bored in fixing things and had ramped up his ability to be annoying. It was likely also restlessness from anxiety about the end of the world. I tried not to hold it against him. I rubbed the bridge of my nose before I looked at Sam. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah, just waiting for Dean. Giles is in the car. We’re going to drop him off at Bobby’s before we move on.”

I looked towards the stairs. He went to get the last of his stuff and it was taking him forever. 

“You’re going to be okay, right?” Sam was staring down at me. 

I smiled in thanks. “Yeah, I think so.” I looked at the stairs again. “I’m going to go see what’s taking him.” Sam didn’t stop me as I headed up the stairs. I opened the door where the boys had been staying and froze. 

Dean had Kelly pushed up against a wall. They were kissing each other like they were trying to drown in each other. I backed out, closed the door softly and went downstairs. 

“What’s wrong?” Jane asked as I got to the bottom.

I shook my head. I was still processing it. How had it gotten to that point? Why would she make out with Dean? Nothing good came from a Winchester. Most importantly, why didn’t she tell me?

“Michelle?” Sam called out, moving towards me. 

I snapped out of it and looked at him. I forced a smile. What could I say? “I think he’s a bit...occupied.” I walked past them out to the porch. It was a little strange looking considering we used different colours of wood on the repairs. I jumped when the boys walked by and Kelly stopped next to me. I didn’t realize time had passed. 

“Don’t forget to call!” Kelly called out, smiling as she waved. Right. The boys had given us two of their burner phones. They both nodded back.

Sam smiled at me and I gave a half-smile back before turning my attention back on Kelly. I heard Dean say something before the car drove away. 

“When were you going to tell me?” I asked.

“Tell you what?” she looked honestly confused. 

“About Dean?”

“What? What do you…” I gave her a look, raising one of my eyebrows. “Oh.” She shrugged. “It’s not serious or anything, we’re just messing around.” 

It felt like I didn’t know her. How was this the girl that told me her dreams of settling down and getting married? I didn’t understand how she could just claim to mess around with a guy who didn’t do steady relationships...who wasn’t even real? At least, not back home. 

“What?” she snapped. “It’s not like I slept with him.”

“You didn’t?”

“Jesus christ Michelle!”

“What?”

She scoffed and went inside. I stood there for a moment. I just didn’t understand. It wasn’t real. There was no point getting attached when danger lurked everywhere when home was waiting. Kelly was nowhere to be found when I went inside. I didn’t look for her. 

Kelly and I still weren’t talking that night. I didn’t know what to say. It was beginning to feel like things were too different between us, like we didn’t know each other anymore. She was just close enough to feel the same. 

I sat across from Spike at the table Kelly had found someone throwing out. There was a mishmash of chairs around it. 

“I tell you, pet, you’re looking at it the wrong way. Not having a soul, best thing to happen to you. None of the pesky conscience.”

“I like my soul, Spike.”

“That’s cause you’ve never been without. Now, you gonna deal or not?”

The vampire had decided boredom was best cured by cards. As I slept the least out of those of us in the house, it was often me that got roped into playing. 

Jane walked in through the back door in the kitchen with Chloe following. She seemed to have taken her under her wing. They spent a lot of their time outdoors when Chloe wasn’t helping in the house. 

A knock sounded at the door. All of us looked at each other, confused as to who it could be. Chloe ran for the window before anyone could stop her. 

“It’s Giles!” 

Kelly came running down the stairs. “What? Didn’t he just leave?” 

I motioned for the others to stay back as I walked up to the door. I glanced at the traps that were still in place before I opened the door and jumped back.

Giles gave a smile. “I’m sorry for intruding,” he explained, “but it seems as if...I’ve been kicked out.” 

“What?” Kelly and I both asked. 

Giles cleared his throat. “Bobby asked me to leave after someone appeared at his door. I didn’t get a look but he was quite...insistent.”

I looked back at Kelly. She was looking at me with wide eyes. Something was wrong. I checked the salt line at the door before I nodded for him to enter. He walked over the salt and through the devil’s trap with ease. Tension in my chest released and I closed the door. 

We settled in the kitchen. 

“Is this wanker living here now too?” Spike asked. 

“I do believe that out of the two of us, I would be most welcome. Don’t forget, I know you, William.”

Spike snarled, his face changing. “The hell you do! The name’s Spike!” 

“Sit down!” I snapped. “I’m not doing this. I’m not listening to you two argue. You want to fight, take it outside. You’re the only ones here with any connection to your world. The only ones who will understand anything about each other. Deal with it.” Kelly tapped me on the arm and motioned for Jane and me to follow her. I looked at the men. “Sort this out. We’ll be back.” 

She led us out to the porch and I watched as she started pacing. 

“Fuck!” she whispered, looking back at the house. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She looked at the door before she finally stopped moving. “You remember when we spoke about zombies? And how they might not come?” She paused, waiting for me to nod. “Well I guess I spoke too fucking soon. They probably came after we left because Bobby’s wife comes back. She’s the only reason I can see why Bobby would kick Giles out that fast.” 

“What do we do?” 

“What can we do?” She snapped. “It’s a bit late! Giles is here, zombies are there!” She took a deep breath before she seemed to calm slightly. “I’m going to call them. I-I can’t let it go like last time. I should have warned them I just..with all the chaos of Spike, I forgot. Where’s the phone?” 

She ran inside and was back in seconds, phone already to her ear. “Dean, call me.” She hung up, making a frustrated noise. “It only helps if they answer their phone!” 

“Kels, it’ll be okay.” I didn’t necessarily think that was true, but she needed to hear it. “We can keep trying.” 

“I know,” she finally said. Her voice was soft. “It's just...the boys will go and take care of it and it’s going to kill Bobby, not literally,” she said quickly, “like emotionally. There’s just...we have to do something.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” I said. “Not really, not outside of what we’re already trying. We can't go fight zombies. We can’t fight anything,” I said. Training was hard, but I wasn’t sure how well it would work up against an actual opponent, outside of Kelly or Jane. 

We stood in silence. She looked like she was thinking of something, mentally processing it before she finally spoke. “If things are going the same way, if nothing changes even though we’re here, then that means…” she started swearing under her breath again. 

“What?” I asked. “That means what?”

She looked up at me. “It’s going to be bad. So fucking bad.” 

Kelly and I barely slept. We left Spike to fend for himself while Giles and Chloe slept. We tried to plan but Kelly didn’t remember everything completely and there wasn’t a lot we could plan for, outside of what we could do ourselves. 

“Do you think they’ll be alright?” Kelly asked for about the tenth time. The boys still hadn’t answered. The kitchen was dark. We had stopped the generator once people went to bed. 

“They’ll be fine. They’re always fine. They get through everything.” She glared at me for that comment but I ignored it. It was the truth. There was nothing to do but wait...and deal with the aftermath. 

Kelly was asleep on the torn-up couch in the living room. I was falling asleep in the kitchen chair, my head leaning back on the wall. The phone rang and I nearly fell off the chair. I was still not used to having the burner phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Michelle, how’s it going?” Sam sounded like he was forcing nonchalance. 

I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up. “Fine, I guess. We’ve been trying to reach you. Giles showed up.”

“Yeah, about that…” I heard Dean’s voice in the background. Sam spoke again. “Look, is Chloe okay?”

“Chloe?” I was not nearly awake enough yet.

“Yeah, has she...raised anything?”

“What? Hold on.” I stood up and walked over to the couch. I kicked it, trying to wake Kelly up. “We’ve been calling. How come no one answered?” He cleared his throat and I kicked the couch again before Kelly finally swore at me and got up.

“We’ve been...busy.” 

Kelly stared at me in confusion as I pointed to the phone. I heard the boys argue for a second. 

“Hold on.” I put the phone on speaker and held it between Kelly and me. “What were you saying?” 

“We think Chloe may have raised some zombies over here. At Bobby’s.”

“It’s not Chloe,” Kelly said instantly. 

“How do you know?” Sam asked softly. 

“Describe them,” Kelly said. 

“What?”

“Describe the zombies.”

“Well,” Sam paused for a second. “They’re just like regular people...except dead.”

“There you go,” Kelly motioned towards the phone. “The zombies Chloe raises are more Dawn of the Dead Romero type. Rotten flesh, broken...everything. They don’t come back perfect and they don’t act human.”

The brothers spoke quietly for a moment.

“We’re going to have to call you back,” Sam said. 

“Wait! Sam!” Kelly called out but he had already hung up. “Shit.” Kelly looked up at me. “This feels super fucking pointless,” she said. “What’s the point of having knowledge if any time I try to use it, it doesn’t work?”

I sat down on the couch next to her. “Maybe that’s the point?” She gave me a cutting look and I tried to explain. “You’re the only one who knows what happens, right?”

“Well, not after this. I left after I saw this to look for you.”

I nodded slowly, trying to ignore the reminder. “Right, well, maybe that’s one of the laws of the universe. Some things can’t be changed.”

“That’s stupid,” she said, scowling. “What’s the point of being here if we’re not changing anything?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there is no point.” I tried not to think about that. There had to be a meaning, a reason outside of the gatekeeper idea, as to why we were here.

“That sucks,” Kelly said. 

“No kidding.” 

* * *

I swung out at Giles. He blocked it. I twisted and swung again. 

“Something’s happened. I know it.” Kelly was still panicking when she got home from work. We had yet to hear from the boys since they accused Chloe, despite Kelly calling them. It had been three days. We were back to training with Giles and Jane. It was easier to focus on training and fighting back than the possibilities of what was happening with the brothers. 

“They’re fine.” I twisted, trying to get out of the way of the stick. This time it was smaller than the staff but Giles wanted to make sure we could dodge before we used actual blades. 

“How do you know?” she snapped. 

“Because they always are,” I stepped back. “Besides, even if something did happen, they wouldn’t stay dead for long.”

“Zombies are not a joke!”

I tried not to laugh at her reaction. I looked over at Chloe who was watching the training. Jane was also watching once she realised Kelly was in no state to continue. 

Chloe shrugged. “I can’t help. I don’t know these ones. I don’t even know the ones back home.” 

“You’ll figure it out,” I said. “You just need practice.” I got hit in the side. I winced and held up a hand to pause. Kelly and Chloe were looking at me in surprise. “I never said it was a good idea!” 

“You have a point,” Giles looked over at us. “The most dangerous powers are the ones untrained. We can continue our practice while I am here, the same strategies we started before. It will be up to you,” Giles motioned to us, “to continue it.” 

“Why us?” I asked, realizing that he was mainly motioning to Jane and me. 

“Because Kelly is working. Chloe is unable to go to school, so she will be training with you.” 

“I haven’t been to school since I got sent to the Lyle house,” Chloe chirped in. 

“Be that as it may, you are a minor. You’ll need to provide some sort of homeschooling for her, and anyone else who may arrive that is young...or from somewhere unusual.”

“You mean me,” Jane said. 

“Precisely. If they need to adapt to this world, then you need to teach them.” 

I looked at Jane who nodded and then at Kelly. Kelly was looking at me like she couldn’t picture me teaching anyone. I didn't blame her. Neither could I. 

“Shall we continue?” he asked. I sighed and nodded, falling back into the stance he was teaching me. 

The phone I had rung that night. I was alone in the kitchen for once. There was a lone candle on the table and it was just spooky enough to keep me awake. 

“Hello?”

“Michelle, it’s Sam.” There were a limited amount of options of who was calling when only three people had the number. 

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Look, it was...it was bad. There’s another vessel here but…” he paused for a moment. “All the zombies turned. They attacked and targeted us.” 

“Are you okay?” I got up and went looking for Kelly. 

“Us? We’re fine.” There was something in his voice that made me stop.

“Sam? What is it?” 

“It’s Bobby. Michelle, his wife came back.” I knew that was coming. Kelly’s warning came true. 

“What?”

“He...he had to kill her. Again.”

I moved back and leaned against the wall, a hand raised to my mouth. I knew Bobby’s story vaguely, that he became a hunter after his wife was possessed. To have her return only to have to kill her again...I couldn’t even imagine it. 

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Poor Bobby.”

“Yeah, so look, when you get here...be gentle. Please.” 

“Of course. Um...I have to get Kelly.” I didn’t hang up and neither did he. I could hear him breathing as I walked up the stairs. I didn’t have to go far. Kelly was at the top, phone to her ear. She was crying. “Sam? We’re just going to tell Jane and then leave.”

“Be careful.”

“Yeah, you too.” I hung up and waited until Kelly came down the stairs, wiping her cheeks. 

“Let’s leave Giles here,” she said. “Bobby’s gonna need time alone.” 

We left the house and stopped at the car. “Jane?” I called out. It was somehow spookier outside. It felt like anything could jump out from the dark. 

“You are leaving.” I nearly jumped out of my skin when Jane walked around the house. She had the tendency to appear out of nowhere in the outdoors. 

“There’s another vessel. We’ll be back by morning when the sun is up,” Kelly said. “Take care of them.”

“I will protect them,” Jane said. “Provided you return whole.”

“We will,” I said, nodding. We got in the car and Jane watched as we drove off. I had no idea what was coming. If this was only the beginning, and Kelly was right, things were going to get a lot worse. I really did not want to see what worse was going to be. 

**[tbc]**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Lisa who helped me not only in the original, the first rewrite but also in this one. Let us know what you think.


End file.
